Under an agreement reached on 12 November 2007, CNPC will supply Shenzhen Gas Corp Ltd with 3.2 million tonnes of gas per year for a period of 25 years, Shenzhen Gas said in a prospectus posted on its website dated 8 December.

Shenzhen Gas, the leading gas distributor in Shenzhen city which borders Hongkong, currently get most of its gas from Guangdong Dapeng LNG, China’s first liquefied natural gas terminal operator, at a price of 1.7 yuan per cubic metre, Reuters reported.

Shenzhen Gas did not disclose the price of gas to be supplied by CNPC after 2011, but analysts have suggested prices could be even higher given the unprecedented long-haul shipping distance from central Asia.

In July, China’s National Development and Reform Commission set the city-gate gas price in Shanghai at about 2 yuan a cubic metre for gas to be pumped, via a nearly 1,700 kilometre pipeline, from western Sichuan’s Puguang field, which is operated by Sinopec.

The landmark central Asia-to-China gas pipeline, China’s first cross-border gas pipeline, winds nearly 2,000 kilometres through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before spanning more than 9,000 kilometres in Chinese territories.

China’s President Hu Jintao is scheduled to visit Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan from 12 to 14 December, to mark the startup of operations of the gas pipeline that has designed transport capacity of 30 billion cubic metres per year when all construction is completed.

China aims to deepen energy ties with Central Asian states seeking new markets for their oil, gas and uranium, a Chinese official said on Thursday, ahead of Hu’s visit to the region.

CNPC’s first west-to-east gas pipeline, with capacity of 17 billion cubic metre per year, winds over 4,000 kilometres from Xinjiang in the northwest to Shanghai in the east. The gas arrives at Shanghai at 1.4 yuan a cubic metre.

CNPC’s key businesses including gas is operated by listed PetroChina. China is mulling to revamp its rigid and fragmented gas pricing system and industry officials have been expecting a general price increase. But a senior NDRC official has said China would not raise gas prices before the end of this year.