China's third West-to-East gas pipeline, mainly carrying gas from Central Asia to southeastern Fujian province, is expected to become operational by the end of 2013 , China Daily reported, citing a source with the country's dominant gas supplier.

The 5,200-kilometre project, with annual shipment capacity of about 30 billion cubic metre, will include one artery, six branch lines, three gas storage facilities and a liquefied natural gas terminal, the report said.

The pipeline will run from the Xinjiang region to the city of Fuzhou in Fujian province, the source was quoted as saying.

Work on the fourth and fifth pipeline will be initiated some time after 2015, with each pipeline having an annual capacity of about 30 bcm and supplying gas to the country's industrialized coastal regions, the English newspaper reported.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan will be the major sources of supply for all the planned pipelines, the report said.

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), parent of China's largest oil and gas producer PetroChina Co Ltd, has long planned to add more lines across the country to feed booming demand in the eastern and southern coasts. But its plans have been modified from one time after another due to uncertainties in gas supplies.

China's first West-to-East gas pipeline, pumping domestic gas from Xinjiang to eastern cities including Shanghai, is running at full capacity of 17 bcm per year, and the second line, sending Turkmenistan gas to the east, is scheduled to reach its capacity of 30 bcm by the end of next year.

China's natural gas imports rose 86.5 percent from a year earlier to some 25 bcm in the first 10 months, of which 12.3 bcm was piped in from Turkmenistan and the remainder shipped in by LNG carriers, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The country aims to more than double the current 4 percent share of gas in its overall energy consumption by 2020.