China National Petroleum Corp. said Monday it was racing to restore operations at a major natural-gas pipeline supplying the financial hub of Hong Kong, which was knocked offline by a landslide in the southern city of Shenzhen that left more than 90 people missing.
CNPC, the state-owned parent of listed unit PetroChina Co., also said in a statement that no explosion had occurred at the affected pipeline. State-owned media outlets including the official Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television reported that an explosion had occurred.
Xinhua said it didn’t have an immediate comment, while calls to a CCTV spokeswoman went unanswered late Monday.
The landslide on Sunday engulfed an industrial area and overturned buildings, trapping residents and workers.
China’s West-East Gas Pipeline, which carries natural gas more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) across China, passes through Shenzhen. It carries gas from abundant reserves in Central Asia to demand centers in Shenzhen and elsewhere across east China. The Shenzhen portion of the pipeline is part of the sprawling gas network’s second phase, which started operation in 2011 and today can carry up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually, according to CNPC.
In a statement posted on its official social-media account, CNPC said it had immediately emptied natural gas from the affected pipeline segment after the landslide on Sunday. The company said that by early Sunday afternoon it had suspended pipeline supplies to neighboring Hong Kong, though it didn’t disclose affected gas volumes to the former British colony.
In a statement, Hong Kong power producer CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd. confirmed its supply of natural gas from the disrupted mainland pipeline had been cut off due to the landslide, and said it was ramping up coal-fired power generation among other measures to ensure stable electricity supply.
