URUMQI - China's first pipeline for natural gas imports had carried almost 4 billion cubic meters of gas from Central Asia in its first year of operation, a pipeline supervisor told Xinhua Thursday.

According to the local bureau for Entry and Exit Inspection and Quarantine in Horgos, a major land port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the natural gas flow from Central Asia to China totaled 3.97 billion cu m, or 2.8 million tons, by Dec 14.

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The bureau participates in supervision of the operation of the international gas pipeline.

On Dec 14, 2009, heads of state for China, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan attended a ceremony at a gas processing plant on the Amu Darya River in Turkmanistan to open the Central-Asia-China natural gas pipeline.

At the beginning of January, the pipeline began to supply gas to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and from Jan 20, gas from Central Asia flowed further eastward, including to Beijing and neighboring areas.

The 1,833-km pipeline starts from the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, traverses through central Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan and enters China at Horgos. It links to China's second West-East natural gas pipeline.