A delegation of Chinese National Petroleum Corporation led by its vice president Wang Dongjin is visiting Ashgabat. The delegation held talks at the state concern Turkmengaz and the state agency for management and use of hydrocarbon resources. The implementation of Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline project was top on the agenda of talks.

According to the official report, the sides agreed that there are all conditions in place to start natural gas supplies from Turkmenistan to the People's Republic of China in the end of 2009 already.

As of today, about 1200 kilometers of the pipeline has been built in the territories of transit countries - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Russian company Stroytransgaz was commissioned to build the 188 km long Malay-Bagtiyarlyk pipeline in the territory of Turkmenistan. It has already built 40 km of the pipeline. The whole segment would be ready by the end of this year.

The construction of the first gas processing plants is being carried out at a fast rate by CNPC International (Turkmenistan) at Samandepe field which is the start point of the pipeline. The commissioning of his plant will kick start the supplies of Turkmen natural gas to China.

It should be recalled that under the general intergovernmental agreement on the construction of this pipeline and sale of natural gas, Turkmenistan will annually supply 30 billion cubic meters to China for 30 years. In future this figure may grow to 40 billion cubic meters. The total length of this world longest pipeline is 7 thousand kilometers.