Workers solder part of the second west-to-east natural gas transmission pipeline at the construction site in in Fengle Town of Wuwei City, northwest China's Gansu Province. The pipeline will carry natural gas from Turkmenistan and China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the central and west China’s areas as well as the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas. The 9,102-kilometer pipeline that is under construction consists of a main line and eight sub-lines traversing 14 provinces, autonomous regions and the municipality Shanghai. The pipeline’s designed gas transmission capacity is 30 billion cubic meters annually and the total investment on the project is 142.2 billion yuan (about 20 billion U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency, March 12, 2008)