A staff worker checks pipeline equipment used in the transport of natural gas from Central Asia to Fuzhou, Fujian Province. (File photo: China News Service)

URUMQI, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- The China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline delivered over 47.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China in 2019, PetroChina West Pipeline Company said Monday.

The pipeline runs from the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, passes through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and links up with China's West-to-East gas pipeline in Horgos, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

China's first transnational gas pipeline, with a total length of 1,833 km and a designed annual gas transmission capacity of 60 billion cubic meters per year, has been operating stably and safely for 10 years since it was put into operation in December 2009.

As of Dec. 31, 2019, 294.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas had been imported via the pipeline, benefitting over 500 million people in 27 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the company said.

The natural gas imports via the pipeline account for more than 15 percent of China's total consumption in the same period.