Natural gas imports to China through the China-Central Asia Gas Pipelines exceeded 100 billion m3 late last week, according to the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC).

As a part of major developments for the "Silk Road Economic Belt", the China-Central Asia Gas Pipelines have a further three lines in production. The construction of Line D started in September this year.

The 1000 km long Line D, one of China's major energy cooperation projects in central Asia, will run from Turkmenistan across Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to China, with an expected delivery capacity of 30 billion m3/yr of natural gas.

Cao Yaming, General Manager of CNPC's central Asia gas pipelines, said investment in Line D had hit US$ 6.7 billion and the project would be completed by the end of 2020, when the annual equivalent amount of oil and natural gas imports will stand at 90 million t.

CNPC so far has transported 70 million t of crude oil and 10 billion m3 of natural gas back to China, and created tens of thousands of jobs in the countries the pipelines travel through.