The accident occurred about 6:20 a.m.in the township of Cuijiaba, Enshi Tujia Autonomous Prefecture, when a pipeline transporting natural gas from southwestern China to the east burst and caught fire.
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Sinopec was forced to halt some natural gas deliveries on Wednesday after a pipeline caught fire in central China and killed two people.
Flooding along China’s Yangtze River this summer has killed at least 186 people as of July 4, according to the civil affairs ministry. “But summer is not a peak season for gas use, so I don’t think it will cause any significant tightness in local markets”.
The company has shut down that section of the pipeline and is working to restore the facility.
The incident had resulted in two fatalities, Xinhua said.
Sinopec said it hoped to meet the supply gap for industrial and residential users from supplies in storage and with gas from PetroChina, the country’s largest gas producer.
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Sinopec plans to double annual gas output to 40 billion cubic meters by 2020 as the country pushes to replace coal with the cleaner fuel, Chairman Wang Yupu said in March. The company invested 63 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) to build the 2,170-kilometer line, according to state-controlled People’s Daily.
