A file photo shows Chinese workers inspecting the pipeline at a section under the Yangtze River in Ruichang, Jiangxi Province, on October 11. The pipeline, going from the country’s west to the coastal east, connects with the China-Central Asia pipeline. Photo: Xinhua
　　President Hu Jintao is expected today to announce the opening of a massive natural gas pipeline through Central Asia that will help curb supply shortages.
　　The 1,833-kilometer line connects Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. One of the two sections of the pipeline has been completed, and the other section will be operational next year.
　　"With an annual expanded transmission capacity of up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan, the route will fill the natural-gas gap," Zhang Yao, director of the Russia and Central Asia Research Center at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times.
　　Hu’s announcement is set to come on his last stop on a tour through Central Asia that he started Saturday in Kazakhstan and ends today after two days in Turkmenistan.
　　With a natural-gas shortage hanging over China, the China- Central Asia gas pipeline will help meet China’s surging demand and reflects multilateral interest in regional cooperation, experts said.
　　The pipeline, starting at the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, will run through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before reaching China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.
　　It will pump gas to China’s second West-East natural gas transmission pipeline project and benefit 14 cities and provinces in the Pearl River Delta region, the Yangtze River Delta and central and western China.
　　In a statement Sunday, Hu said his current trip is aimed at further promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas, according to Xinhua.
　　By 2011, the pipeline will transfer up to 13 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Its capacity could reach 30 billion per year, plus an additional 17 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan purchased by China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), one of China’s largest oil and gas producer and supplier.
　　China’s gas shortages are expected to grow to 30 billion cubic meters next year, and the figure could reach 40 billion in 2015, the China News Agency reported.
　　CNPC imported at least 700 million cubic meters of liquefied natural gas last month from the spot market to cope with an urgent gas shortage that hit southern China due to a sudden cold snap.
　　The inauguration of the pipeline comes on the heels of Hu’s attendance at Saturday’s completion ceremony of a 1,300-kilometer Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline in Kazakhstan.
　　The project is part of the China-Central Asia gas pipeline, which is also known as Turkmenistan-China pipeline and was constructed in 2007, one year after former Turkmenistan president Saparmurat Niyazov’s visit to China. Under a 30-year contract, the transit route will provide 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to China.
　　Turkmenistan’s natural gas reserves rank fourth worldwide after Russia, the United States and Iran. Official statistics said its reserves could reach up to 25 trillion cubic meters.
　　China began tapping into Central Asia’s rich oil and gas energy in 1997 when it signed an intergovernmental agreement with Kazakhstan to build an oil pipeline between western Kazakhstan and Xinjiang.
　　Diversified energy imports
　　"The new transit route reflects China’s strategy to diversify its energy-import sources and is essential to guaranteeing China’s energy-import security," Zhang said.
　　The Middle East and West Africa are two traditional sources of energy imports for China, and half of the energy needed is currently imported from the Middle East.
　　"Transporting energy through a sea route such as the Malacca Strait entails great potential risks. If any geopolitical conflict occurs, the route will be cut off," Zhang warned.
　　He said that compared with maritime transport, transport by land routes such as the Central Asia-China route remains the most secure, economic and prudent channel of energy import.
　　Xia Yishan, head of the China Energy Strategy Research Center under the China Institute of International Studies, said the pipeline will also accelerate the restructuring of China’s energy sources structure.
　　According to statistics, the utilization rate of natural gas contributes to only 3 percent of the entire energy usage in China, where coal makes up 70 percent of energy use.
　　It is estimated that with the pipeline in use, the percentage of natural gas in China’s total energy consumption will increase by nearly 2 percent, according to Chinastakes.com, an online English publication founded by senior financial professionals based in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.
　　"To increase the utilization of natural gas will not only contribute to the improvement of people’s lives, but also reduce carbon emission and speed up China’s development toward a green economy," Xia said.
　　Russia not offended
　　The transit route bypassed Russia, China’s long-term partner, giving rise to concerns that the pipeline will irk Russia.
　　But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in Moscow earlier this month that the China-Central Asia gas pipeline won’t harm the planned Sino-Russia pipeline, due to steady growth in China’s energy demands. He said that China and Russia had "close contact" on this issue, according to Xinhua.
　　Lu Jianren, a researcher with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said the concerns are baseless.
　　He said Russia has huge gas reserves and does not regard China as a competitor, but rather as a potential buyer, with Russia ready to woo China to invest in Russia’s energy industry, as evidenced by the oil deals signed between