PetroChina, the nation's largest oil and gas producer, plans to invest up to 100 billion yuan (12.3billion US dollars) to expand its oil and gas pipelines by 15,000 kilometers over the next five years, China Daily reported Thursday.

The new pipelines will be concentrated in the southwestern, northwestern and northeastern areas of China, said a company statement released by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

A cross-border pipeline construction also on the budget of the oil giant.

By expanding its pipeline network, the Hong Kong-listed company aims to secure oil and gas supplies to the end users, the paper quotes the statement as saying.

Of the 15,000 kilometers of pipelines to be completed by 2010, 8,000 kilometers will be used for natural gas transportation, 3,000 for crude oil and 4,000 for refined oil.

The new oil pipelines will link PetroChina's major oilfields to the refineries, and then pump the refined oils such as gasoline and diesel to oil storage facilities and service stations across the nation.

The pipelines under-construction for refined oil and crude oil transportation in the western region are scheduled to go operational by the end of this year and next August respectively.

These lines total 4,000 kilometers, the company statement said.

Other lines linking large-scale PetroChina refineries in the northeast and northwest such as the Lanzhou refinery of Gansu Province, and Jinxi refinery of Liaoning Province to the fuel guzzling northern and central areas of China are also being prepared.

Part of the pipeline designed to pump crude oil from Kazakhstan to PetroChina's Dushanzi refinery in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of Northwest China, is expected to go online by the end of the year.

PetroChina's ambitious plan was announced shortly after the company unveiled its long-term plan to speed up its refining business.

Source: Xinhua