CREP South Section Breaks Ground, in Service by 2025
On July 28, Yangtze River crossing project of China-Russia East Pipeline (CREP) South Section (Yongqing to Shanghai) was kicked off, marking the official startup of CREP south section’s construction.
The Yangtze River shield crossing project is not only the necessary passage for natural gas transported from Russia to Shanghai but also the only passage for the coastal natural gas pipeline to cross the Yangtze River from the north. The Project has a tunnel inner diameter of 6.8 meters and a length of 10.226 kilometers. It currently has the longest excavation distance, deepest buried depth, highest water pressure, and largest diameter in the world’s oil and gas pipeline industry.
After putting the south section into service in June 2025 as planned, CREP is then capable to transmit 18.9 bcma natural gas from Russia to the Yangtze River Delta passing by Northeast China and North China. Besides, CREP (Yongqing-Shanghai), WEP I, WEP II Shanghai branch and Jiangsu-Rudong Line can achieve interconnection, which greatly improves the energy transportation environment, effectively improves the emergency guarantee capability of gas grid, and meets the natural gas industry development need and the civil gas demand in the Yangtze River Delta. The south section can help East China to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 81,440kt, reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 900kt, reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 230kt, and reduce dust emissions by 420kt. Thus, the project will significantly improve the atmospheric environment and reduce environmental pollution in the Yangtze River Delta.
CREP construction is divided into north, middle and south sections, and the total length is 5,111 kilometers. The starting point is located at the China-Russia border in Heihe, Heilongjiang, and it passes through nine provinces and cities including Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong and Jiangsu, etc. and arrived in Shanghai. Hereinto, north section of CREP (Heihe to Changling) was put into operation on December 2, 2019; middle section of CREP (Changling to Yongqing) is under construction and is scheduled to be put into service in 2020; south section of CREP is expected to be put into operation in 2025, with a total length of 1,509 kilometers, 1,243 kilometers of newly built pipelines and 266 kilometers of existing pipelines.
