South China’s Hainan Province is preparing to begin a project under which rich local offshore gas can be used to generate electricity for supplying its northern neighbour Guangdong Province, one of the country’s economic powerhouses. Some 3.9 billion yuan (about USD 470 million) will be needed to build, upgrade and enlarge infrastructure for generating and transmitting electricity from offshore gas, said a provincial official. The infrastructure will include a 300–400km power transmission line, for which installation of a 30km seabed cable will be necessary, said the official. Wu Zhenfang, general manager of Zhonghai Petrochemical Co. Ltd.of Hainan, said that Hainan has more than 250 billion cubic meters of verified gas reserves, or 12% of the national total.
