PETROCHINA Co, the main operator of China's oil and gas pipelines, aims to expand its network by 80 percent in five years to meet increasing demand.

The company plans to lay another 40,000 kilometers of pipelines by 2015, adding to the more than 50,000 kilometers now, a company newsletter from parent China National Petroleum Corp said yesterday.

PetroChina now operates 70 percent of the nation's oil pipelines and 90 percent of the gas pipelines, the newsletter added.

China is laying more pipelines to distribute gas from the west to the eastern coastal regions and to transport oil from the north to the southern provinces. Pipelines are also being built to import energy from Central Asia, Russia and Myanmar.

Last month, PetroChina opened the valve for part of the eastern section of the country's second west-to-east pipeline to carry Turkmenistan gas to residential users in central Hunan and Hubei provinces to meet the spike in demand as winter nears.

PetroChina's total pipeline length stood at 32,000 kilometers at the end of 2005.