China’s Pipeline Champion Misses an Opportunity

China’s plans to create a pipeline giant to aid development of its natural gas market are overdue, and welcome. The state-owned champion, provisionally dubbed China Pipelines Corp., will combine the pipeline divisions of state-owned PetroChina Co., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. or Sinopec, and Cnooc Ltd. A mooted market capitalization of as much as 500 billion yuan ($78 billion) would make it the world’s largest pipeline operator on that measure, comfortably outstripping Enterprise Product Partners LP at $64 billion. There’s much to like in that plan, given the way the current setup has helped stymie China’s drive to increase the role of gas in its domestic energy mix.