Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Astana Dec. 13 to unveil the Kazakh section of a 7,000-kilometer (4,300-mile) natural gas pipeline [2] joining Central Asia to China [3]. Hu was joined by Kazakhstan [4]'s President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the inauguration, where the two leaders together pressed a symbolic button to open the 1,833-kilometer Kazakh section. Nazarbayev said: "This is a grand construction project that will in time resurrect the ancient Silk Route." Hu is next due to head to a commissioning ceremony in Turkmenistan [5], where the pipeline actually begins. He is expected to be joined there by President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan [6], the fourth country involved in the project.
The pipeline, which begins at a Turkmenistan gas field being developed by the China National Petroleum Corporation, concludes in Xinjiang [7] in western China. This is Kazakhstan's first export route that does not go through Russia [8]. The Kazakh segment cost $6.7 billion and was completed within two years. Most of the finance came from the state-run China Development Bank. The entire pipeline is set to be completed by 2013. (Xinhua [9], Dec. 14; BBC News [10], Dec. 13; )
See our last posts on Central Asian pipeline wars [11].
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