The China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline will have transported a total of 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas by the end of this month, equivalent to the total annual natural gas consumption of China or 11 years' worth of natural gas supply for Beijing, China National Petroleum Corp, the country's largest oil and gas supplier and producer, said on Nov 3.

The pipeline, which has been in operation since December 2009, runs through China, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The gas supply from the Central Asian countries has played a significant role in ensuring natural gas supplies during the heating season in northern China, when demand rises to nearly three times that of nonheating seasons.

Qu Guangxue, a CNPC spokesman, says that the company, which accounts for over 70 percent of the natural gas supplied in China, expects natural gas demand to reach 81.3 billion cu m this year for the company, up by 11.7 percent from the same period a year ago.

"The company is committed to ensuring adequate domestic natural gas supplies even as it continues negotiations with other Central Asian nations for additional stocks," says Qu.

According to Qu, natural gas demand has witnessed a slight surge this year, with sales of the clean energy experiencing year-on-year growth of more than 20 percent .

Analysts say the China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline has met China's natural gas demand and diversified the nation's sources of natural gas imports.

Li Li, an energy research director at ICIS China, says natural gas has become China's fastest-growing fuel in recent years, and the stable supplies and relatively well-developed infrastructure have helped boost growth.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission, China's natural gas supplies will exceed 360 billion cu m by 2020 and will account for 10 percent of China's energy production by then, compared with the current 7 percent.

Output of natural gas rose from 50 billion cu m in 2005 to 135 billion cu m in 2016.

To meet the rapid growth in demand, the commission has vowed to strengthen its pipeline network during the next decade.

The country's oil and gas pipeline network is expected to reach 240,000 kilometers by 2025 from the current 112,000 kilometers, it said.

Wang Lu, an Asia-Pacific oil and gas analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, says growth in pipeline length and total transmission capacity will help China raise the share of gas in the primary energy consumption mix.

zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn