A crude pipeline linking China with the Indian Ocean has officially begun operations with the arrival of a Greek-owned suezmax earlier this week.
The ship began offloading crude oil at Made Island oil port in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
The pipeline will allow China to import crude from the Middle East and Africa without having to ship it through the Straits of Malacca.
The vessel involved is said to be Marine Management Services’ (MMS) 161,563-dwt United Dynamic (built 2010), according to Bloomberg.
The tanker is said to have arrived in Myanmar around 9 April after loading oil from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan terminal in Turkey.
Trial operations began in 2015 on the 771 km pipeline, which is designed to carry 22mt of crude per annum into China’s southwestern Yunnan Province.
“The commencement of transmission of crude oil shows that the two countries have entered a new phase of energy cooperation,” Xinhua said.
On Monday China and Myanmar also signed an agreement on the pipeline during a state visit to China by Myanmar president Htin Kyaw, state-run China Daily reported.
China’s crude imports rose almost 14% last year, the fastest annual pace since 2010, and touched a record in December of 8.6m barrels a day.
