China’s biggest energy firm has started installing a fourth gas pipeline between Shaanxi province and Beijing.
The 1,114 kilometre pipeline is intended to increase the gas supply to China’s north-east.
It will run from Shaanxi across Inner Mongolia and Hebei, terminating at the Gaoliying terminal in Beijing.
Welding works commenced in Ulanqab city, Inner Mongolia, earlier this month.
It will have a capacity of 25billion cubic metres and will start operations before October 2017, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said in an online statement.
The company finished the third Shaanxi-Beijing pipeline in 2010.
The existing three pipelines have a combined capacity of 35billion cubic meters.
CNPC also said the fourth pipeline would help mitigate air pollution within the north of China, but did not explain how.