China To Build First Private Pipeline

China is likely to build its first private pipeline to import oil from Russia.

According to the Chinese mass media, the 30-kilometer pipeline of $65 million worth will link railway lines between the northeastern city of Heihe in China?s Heilongjiang province and Siberia?s Blagoveshchensk in Russia. The construction is to be launched this month.

It said its first stage transmission capacity will reach three million tons annually. ?We aim to provide a conduit for companies that have oil import and export rights...it?s just like building a highway where we collect the tolls,? Hao Chunli, deputy general manager of Xinghe Industrial Development Co Ltd, the Chinese operator of the pipeline, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Xinghe Industrial will invest 342.33 million yuan ($43 million) in the pipeline, while the Russian partner will contribute the remaining 170 million yuan ($22 million) the Heihe municipal government said on its website.

The pipeline begins in Blagoveshchensk where there will be an oil storage facility with a capacity of 24,000 tons, and ends at Heihe where an oil storage facility with a capacity of 60,000 tons will be built.