According to reports, Central Asia has recently announced that it will start meeting a big part of country’s energy requirement by the end of this year, when the first phase of huge 10,000 km long pipeline gets functional.

Moreover, the gas pipeline will include around 15 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Kazakhstan.

The new pipeline is projected to accomplish the government’s target for western region development by pulling in Caspian Sea gas supplies to Xinjiang area. The gas runs pipeline from Turkmenistan and passes via Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, this is the fourth global oil and gas pipeline linking China after the Sino-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines, the China-Pakistan crude pipeline and the Sino-Russian oil pipeline.

In the meantime, the project capacity of the Central Asian pipeline is said to double from 15 billion cubic meters in 2010 to around 30 billion cubic meters by the end of next year.

While talking to media, chief of the energy research center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shi Dan said, “Central Asian countries will play an important role in China's overseas energy strategy. And the pipeline is part of China's attempts to secure more energy sources worldwide.”

However, the vice president of China National Petroleum, Zhou Jiping told media that the natural gas is supposed to play a vital role in the country’s energy mix growing from the current level of 3.9% to 10% of China’s primary energy usage by the next ten years.