CNPC opens Myanmar natural gas pipeline

State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation has started pumping natural gas from Myanmar to southwest China, Financial Times reported. The pipeline opens a new energy corridor for China, which will now be able to access gas supplies from Myanmar’s offshore gas fields. At full capacity – 12 billion cubic meters per year – the pipeline will account for about 6% of China’s annual gas consumption. A parallel oil pipeline is expected to open next year, supplying crude oil delivered to a port on Myanmar’s deep-water port of Kyauk Phyu in the Bay of Bengal.