On August 1, the oil, launched on June 30, arrived at the Lanzhou terminal station in Gansu Province via the Western Crude Oil Pipeline, marking the first successful run of the pipeline. The Western Products Pipeline, laid in the same ditch, went on stream early in September 2006. The Western Pipeline project from now on has wholly moved to operation term.
The Western Pipeline, totally cost 15 billion yuan, is composed oftwo trunk lines andseven branches (five of which have been put into operation) with a total length of almost 4,000km. The crude oil trunk, with a designed annual deliverability of 20 million tons, starts from Shanshan County in Xinjiang Vygur Autonomous Region and ends at Lanzhou in Gansu Province, traveling a distance of 1,546km. The Western Pipeline hastwo gateway stations,two terminal stations,nine intermediate stations and 50 valve chambers, as well as a newly built storage tank capacity of 94,2000 cubic meters.