Gas pipeline mooted to link up RI and China
Gas pipeline mooted to link up RI and China
Reuters, Seoul
A group of businessmen brought together by the APEC trade group plan an undersea gas pipeline from an Indonesian gas field to Shanghai, a South Korean member of the group said on Monday.
Partnership for Equitable Growth (PEG), a non-profit company, plans to build the 4,875 km (3,027 miles) pipeline from the Natuna D-Alpha natural gas field in the South China Sea to Shanghai, PEG chairman Kim Young-hoon said in a statement.
"We've been working on this project more than three years to meet rapidly growing natural gas demand in China," Kim, the president of South Korea's city gas association, told Reuters.
The proposed US$8 billion pipeline, which has yet to receive official endorsement from China and Indonesia, would go via Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, he said.
The project, dubbed the Asian Gas Grid, would be a better alternative than transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in ships to meet Chinese gas needs, Kim said.
He said the project was endorsed in 1998 by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, a trade and political body grouping 21 Pacific-rim economies from Russia to Chile.
PEG was formed by six APEC members among businessmen from APEC's business advisory council, ABAC.
ExxonMobil is the majority owner and operator of the D-Alpha block situated in the Natuna Sea, which has estimated recoverable reserves of some 46 trillion cubic feet.
The pipeline would be the longest undersea gas pipelines in the world -- ahead of a 1,500 km (930 mile) gas pipeline from Norway's Troll gas field to Belgium, PEG said.
Kim said around 30 percent of the $8 billion cost would be raised by member businessmen and the rest through other funding.
They plan to complete the construction of the 1.2 metre wide pipeline before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
"I was motivated to lead the project in an effort to link the pipe further to Korea, thus reducing Korea's 100 percent dependency on LNG," Kim added.
Set up in 1999, PEG has four board members: Kim; Dr. Jeffrey Koo, President of Chinatrust Commercial Bank of Taiwan; Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, President of YTL Group of Malaysia; and Timothy Ong, President of Asia Inc. Investments of Brunei.