The routing plan of the Second West-East Pipeline Project was basically confirmed on August 23.

According toplan, the Second West-East Pipeline will start at Horgas in Xinjiang and end at Guangzhou in the south and Shanghai in the east. The Pipeline, with a trunk line full length of 4,895 meters, will pass through 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipality directly under the Central Government, including Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

The trunk of the Pipeline has a designed gas delivery capacity of 30 billion cubic meters per year in the preliminary program, and is planned to be constructed in the year 2008 and put into operation in 2010.

It is estimated that the Second West-East Pipeline, after being completed, can increase the natural gas consumption ratio in China by one to two percent. Totally 76.8 million tons of coal combusted per year can be replaced by natural gas, meaning that the sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by 1.66 million tons and 150 million tons respectively.