China-Myanmar Oil Pipeline Begins Trial Pperation

China and Myanmar put into trial operation the Myanmar section of a shared crude oil pipeline on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported.

 

The 771-km section of the 2,400-km (1,500-mile) pipeline was completed in May 2014, the state media said. A subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) built and manages it.

 

The pipeline, which can carry 440,000 barrels per day (bpd), should help ease China's reliance on shipments via the narrow and potentially risky Malacca Strait.

 

However that route, through which some 80 percent of China's oil imports now pass, will still be used for the vast majority of China's overseas purchases.

 

Sources told Reuters last week that an affiliated 200,000-bpd refinery near the southwestern city of Kunming was months away from completion.

 

Until then, the new pipeline can only be used to pump oil into tanks, providing limited near-term support to China's crude oil imports, which expanded by nearly 10 percent in 2014 to 6.2 million bpd.

 

The connected deep sea port at Myanmar's Made Island, at the western end of the pipeline, will open on Friday, the state media report said.

 

A parallel natural gas pipeline went into operation in July 2013 and has exported 3.92 billion cubic metres (bcm) to China.