The Chinese state-owned energy company Sinopec plans to build a more than 400 km-long green hydrogen pipeline designed to channel hydrogen from Ulanqab, in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to Beijing in eastern China. In its first phase, the West-to-East Hydrogen Transmission pipeline will have the capacity to transport 100 kt/year of hydrogen, with the potential to increase the capacity to 500 kt/year in later phases.
The project will be the country's first trans-regional, long-distance hydrogen pipeline, which aims to transfer clean fuel from the resource-rich west China to energy-consuming regions in the east of the country. Once the pipeline is put into operation, the supply from Inner Mongolia will replace the current hydrogen production from fossil fuels in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
In March 2022, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued its Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035), targeting a production of 100-200 kt/year of green hydrogen and the deployment of 50,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2025. By 2035, the country aims for its hydrogen energy applications to cover transportation, energy storage, industry and other fields.