PipeChina starts building $1.3 billion gas trunk line in north China

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China Oil and Gas Pipeline Network, or PipeChina, said on Tuesday it began laying a natural gas trunkline in north China that links an import terminal in Tianjin and a new economic area Xiongan near the capital Beijing.

The 413.5-kilometer (256.94 miles) line with maximum diameter of 1.106 meters costs 8.6 billion yuan ($1.31 billion)to build, PipeChina said on its official Wechat platform.

The project, one of the new investments by PipeChina since its launch last October, has a designed transport capacity of 6.6 billion cubic meters, roughly 2% of China's total gas consumption.

It will also be connected to several key projects including Shaanjing pipelines that transport gas from fields in China's northwest to Beijing, as well as with the Power of Siberia project that sends Russian gas to China, the firm added.

($1 = 6.5439 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu, editing by Ed Osmond)