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Construction workers are putting the finishing touches on an oil pipeline which will send refined oil to major cities in south China's Guangdong Province.

The 1,135 km long pipeline, which cost 3 billion yuan ($370 million U.S. dollars), will help solve Guangdong's transportation bottleneck for petroleum and diesel fuels.

The pipeline with a capacity of 9.5 million tons starts in the south of Zhanjiang City and winds its way north feeding the cities of Maoming, Yangjiang, Jiangmen, Shunde before it terminates at the city of Shenzhen.

The pipeline will pump oil from three major refining bases of the China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) in Guangdong. It is soon expected to be linked to another major pipeline in southwest China, which traverses the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces.

As China's largest market for refined oil, Guangdong consumed 20 million tons of refined oil, or 16 percent of the country's total in 2005. Local demand for refined fuels has increased annually at rate of over 10 percent.

Construction work on the project, which began in February 2004, has been basically completed and the pipeline is expected to be put into full operation soon, according to sources with Sinopec.