China National Petroleum Corp said Monday that it has started construction of an eastern section of its Third West-East gas pipeline in China.

Work has started on the Ji'an-Fuzhou segment of the pipeline on May 9, which will run through southeastern Jiangxi and Fujian provinces, ending in the city of Fuzhou, CNPC said.

This particular section of the pipeline will stretch 817 km (507 miles), with annual capacity of 15 billion cubic meters, CNPC said.

Local media reported Monday that the Ji'an-Fuzhou pipeline will cost Yuan 13.4 billion ($2.18 billion) and is expected to be operational by June 2014.

Construction of the entire Third West-East pipeline was launched in October 2012 with ground-breaking ceremonies in Fujian and Xinjiang.

The $20 billion pipeline will have capacity of 30 billion cu m/year and is expected to be fully operational by 2015. The new pipeline, which will start in Horgos in western Xinjiang province on the border with Kazakhstan -- the same starting point as the Second West-East pipeline -- is expected to transport Central Asian gas from western China to the east coast. It will link up with the Central Asia-China gas pipeline network.

It will pass through 10 provinces and the main trunk line will be more than 5,000 km, CNPC had said earlier.

The 12 billion cu m/year, 3,843 km First West-East pipeline transports gas from the western Tarim Basin in Xinjiang to Shanghai. It started operations in 2003.

The 30 billion cu m/year Second West-East pipeline, which transmits gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan imported by CNPC, was fully commissioned in May last year.

Early this month, Xinhua news agency reported that CNPC had started planning its fourth and fifth cross-country gas pipelines, each with capacity of 45 billion cu m/year.