(Direct translation of News Article from The Myanmah Ahlin on 25
January 2013.)
Massive Burma-China
pipeline carrying crude oil from the middle-east and natural gas from Burma
will be completed in May and the oil and gas will start flowing in early June
this year, according to Gao Jianguo the head of the Trans-Burma Pipeline
Project under China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
Burma
side of the pipeline has already been completed and the China side will be
completed at the end of this month. The actual flow tests are planned at the
end of February and by the end of May this year the pipeline will be ready for
the distribution of crude oil and natural gas. The pipeline is the joint
project between MPGE (Myanmar Petroleum and Gas Enterprise) and CNPC.
The
pipeline carrying crude oil from the middle-east connects the Burmese port town
of Kyaukphyu in the Arrakan and the Chinese city of Kuming in the Yunan of
China. The total length of the pipeline is 771 km and the flow capacity is 22
million metric-tons of crude oil a year.
Other
pipeline carrying natural gas from Burma connects Kyaukphyu port and the
Chinese cities of Kuming, Kaikyo, and Kyaungsi. Total length of the natural gas
pipeline is 2806 km and the flow capacity is 12 billion cubic-meters.
(Following
is what China’s Xinhua News Agency reported of the Trans-Burma Pipeline on 23
January.)
BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- If everything goes as planned,
the China-Myanmar oil and natural gas pipelines, China's new strategic energy
channels, are expected to be completed on May 30, according to the contractor.
Construction has been sped up on the pipelines' domestic
and overseas sections. Barring insurmountable barriers, the oil and gas
pipelines could begin operating in early June, Gao Jianguo, the head of the
project under the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), told Xinhua on
Saturday.
The main parts in Myanmar have been finished, while those
in Chinese territory will be completed this month. The pipelines will undergo
pressure tests and a drying process in February, according to Gao.
Crude oil will be shipped from the Middle East via the
Indian Ocean -- instead of the risk-prone Strait of Malacca -- before reaching
Myanmar and entering China via the oil pipeline.
The 1,100-kilometer-long oil and natural gas pipelines run
from the port of Kyaukpyu on Myanmar's west coast and enter China at Ruili,
Yunnan Province.
The oil pipeline has a designed annual transport capacity
of 22 million tonnes, while the natural gas pipeline has a designed annual
transport capacity of 12 billion cubic meters. The channels will significantly
increase the energy supply to the country's underdeveloped southwestern
regions.
Super-carrier USS George Washington in Singapore Waters (2010). |
China's very first aircraft-carrier Liaoning in South-China sea (2012). |
China's Strategic Plan to remove Excessive Reliance on Seaborne Oil Imports
The
China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline was formally started on June 3, 2010 after
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Myanmar President U Thein Sein jointly presided
over an opening ceremony in Nay Pyi Daw. With
a total investment of 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), the pipeline could
deliver 23 million tons of oil and 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas every
year to China.
China now
imports 4.6 mbpd of crude oil the 40% of its massive crude oil consumption (almost
9 million-barrels-per-day) and almost all of that imported oil comes by sea
route through nearly-choking Malacca Straits which is effectively controlled by
US Navy’s Super-Carrier Strike Groups.
To protect
China’s oil imports Chinese leadership drew a strategic plan in early 2000s to
remove that excessive reliance on the seaborne oil shipments. And the Trans-Burma
and Trans-Pakistan pipelines, and the pipelines from Russia and Kazakhstan are
the direct results of that strategic plan.