New China-Myanmar pipeline opens Source: CFP Graphics: GT

A China-Myanmar gas pipeline has gone into full operation on Sunday. It will fuel China's Southwest regions with piped natural gas for the first time and decrease gas price in these areas.

Some 1,727 kilometers of the 2,520-kilometer pipeline are in China, running through provincial regions in Southwest China's Yunnan, Guizhou and Chongqing, and South China' s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Starting from Myanmar's Kyaukpyu Harbor and ending in China's Guigang, Guizhou Province, the pipeline is expected to send 12 billion cubic meters of gas each year to Myanmar and the Chinese regions, according to the China National Petroleum Corporation, the builder of the project. 

In Guizhou Province, four cities including Guiyang will be supplied 1 million cubic meters of piped gas each day, Liu Qilong, a vice general manager of Guizhou gas group, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The piped gas will improve local air quality as 90 percent of local factories in Guizhou rely on coal and most residents' cooking fuel is also refined from coal, said Liu.

The pipeline will also change the energy structure in these regions. For example, the amount of industrial-use piped gas will increase from the current 5 million cubic meters to 500 million cubic meters by the end of 2014, reported China National Radio (CNR).

"Local companies don't have to worry about the gas limit anymore," Liu said.

This pipeline will relieve China's energy risks and will also reduce the price of gas, Lin Boqiang, a professor with the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

"Currently, China's piped gas is mainly imported from areas around the Malacca Strait. Now, we have one more pipeline from the land instead of the seabed, which will decrease dangerous factors," Lin said, adding that gas price in these areas is expected to go down as piped gas is the cheapest gas.

Gas price for residents' use in Guangxi will decrease by 13 percent, reported CNR.

But some residents reached by the Global Times said the falling price has no influence on their lives and some said they want environmentally-friendly fuel. Jiang Hui, a worker in Guiyang, said he prefers to use electricity instead of piped gas as the former is more convenient.