State-owned China National Petroleum Corp said Friday that the Hutubi natural gas storage facility in western Xinjiang has about 1 billion cubic meters of gas inventory, which will help alleviate peak winter demand in the area.

The storage plant primarily serves CNPC's First West-East and Second West-East gas pipelines that run from Xinjiang to the eastern coast of China. Their total transmission capacity is 42 Bcm/year.

The Hutubi facility was commissioned in July and is China's largest natural gas storage project.

CNPC said that with the onset of winter, the storage facility will play an important role in ensuring peak demand is met. It has said previously that Xinjiang frequently suffered gas shortages in winter.

The Hutubi gas storage plant is the first of six facilities being built to come online. It has the capacity to store 10.7 Bcm of gas, with daily gas injection capability of 11.23 million cu m.

It was converted from the existing Hutubi gas field in the Junggar Basin and will store gas in an underground reservoir.