The China Petroleum Daily gave no details on the deal, though it said part of the work on the wharf in Myanmar where the oil will be unloaded had been finished in November.

The pipeline was another important energy import means for China, the report said, adding it was a “golden bridge of friendship between China and Myanmar.”

The crude oil pipeline will have a total capacity of 22 million tonnes a year, while an accompanying gas pipeline will have a capacity of 12 billion cubic metre (bcm), said the newspaper, which is run by CNPC.

Both pipelines will start from the Myanmar port of Kyauk Phyu in the western state of Rakhine (also known as Arakan), then head in a northeasterly direction towards the city of Mandalay before arriving in the Chinese border town of Ruili in southwestern Yunnan province.

From there the pipelines go to Yunnan provincial capital Kunming and eventually on to the cities of Chongqing and Nanning.

CNPC, the parent of PetroChina , said in September it planned to complete the China section of pipelines from the former Burma and a related refinery by 2013, putting the pipeline a year behind schedule.

The projects will help diversify China’s energy import routes, cutting its dependence on shipments via the potentially risky Malacca Strait, through which some 80 percent of the country’s oil imports now pass.

China calls this the “Malacca Strait dilemma”, fearing that during a conflict, a hostile power could choke off energy supplies that are taken on supertankers through the narrow strait between Malaysia and Indonesia.