Xinjiang – China's energy gateway

The unrest in China’s far-west region of Xinjiang, notably in the local capital of Urumqi, comes after 15 years of development and transformation of the area to be a geo-economic springboard for projecting influence into Central Asia and the Caspian region in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The vast region, more than three times the size of California and once possibly best known as home to China’s nuclear test site at Lop Nor, is becoming increasingly important as a transit route for fuel pipelines from neighboring countries and further afield in addition to its role as an important supplier of its own energy and mineral resources to the industrial east of the country.
The central government has encouraged heavy ethnic Han emigration to the area, formally called the Xinjiang-Uyghur

Autonomous Region, to develop these resources while economic incentives are offered to the disadvantaged native Uyghurs to leave for elsewhere in China.

New highways throughout the region’s western hinterland are helping to promote international trade flows while strengthening the government’s grip. Western Xinjiang borders on Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and both sides of the Indo-Pakistani Line of Control in Kashmir (as well as the Chinese Line of Control lying across Kashmiri territory claimed by India). Other parts of Xinjiang border on Mongolia, Russia and the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) says that Xinjiang holds 17.4 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, but given the frequently difficult geology and often extreme depths, it is not clear how much of that is recoverable. In the 1990s, several Western energy companies paid high fees to test-drill for heavily touted oil – but the holes came up dry.

Nevertheless, according to Chinese sources, Xinjiang represents one-seventh of the country’s current oil production and nearly one-quarter of its petroleum reserves. It also holds over two-fifths of its coal reserves.

Asia Times