China's major oil and natural gas supplier has made a proposal to the central government on building the country's second natural gas pipeline linking the country's biggest gas field to Beijing by the end of 2005.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's leading oil and gas producer, said in a press release published on its website that the second line will have a designed annual capacity of pumping 12 billion cubic meters.

The proposed line will be connected with the country's 4,000 km natural gas pipeline to transmit natural gas from the country's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the west to the east, according to the online report.

The Economic Information Daily published by Xinhua said in its Monday edition that the second line, which spans 900 km in length, will be used to supply gas to Beijing and neighboring provincial areas, including Tianjin Municipality and the provincesof Heibei, Shandong and Shanxi.

The first gas pipeline linking Changqing Natural Gas Field inShaanxi province and Beijing, which measures 1,104 km in length, has supplied a total of 7.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas toBeijing during the past six years since 1998.

But the first pipeline itself, which cost 6 billion yuan (731 million US dollars), will be unable to meet Beijing's fast growing demand for the environment friendly energy.

Beijing's demand for natural gas is growing by an annual rate of 17 percent to 5.8 billion cubic meters in 2008, and 8.5 billioncubic meters in 2014, as it has decided to reduce its coal consumption and encourage the use of natural gas to cut air pollution.

The current Shaanxi-Beijing transmission pipeline could not cope with the peak demand for natural gas this winter even operating at its maximum capacity, or 290 million cubic meters short of the 3.8 billion cubic meter demand from Beijing and Tianjin, according to the newspaper.

According to the CNPC plan under review by the central government, the new pipeline will supply 924 million cubic meters of gas to Beijing in 2005, 2.99 billion cubic meters in 2008, and 5.79 billion cubic meters in 2014.

Changqing Natural Gas Field has a combined reserve of 1.183 trillion cubic meters of natural gas.