Kazakhstan and China launched the construction of an oil pipeline on Tuesday that will ship up to 20 million tones (400,000 barrels) of Russian and Kazakh oil a year to help feed China\'s booming economy. The link will be a major boom for landlocked Kazakhstan. The mineral-rich nation aspires to triple its crude output to over 3.0 million bpd by 2015, but it lacks routes to energy-deficient world markets. The $700-million, 962-km (600-mile) pipeline will be financed 50-50 by Chinese state oil firm CNPC and Kazakhstan\'s KazMunaiGas and run from Atasu in central Kazakhstan to Alashankou in western China. Its completion is planned by December 2005. \"This (pipeline) is an opportunity to employ the transit potential of our country to provide shipments of crude from western Siberia across our territory,\" Kazakh Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik said at the ground-breaking ceremony in Atasu. \"The Chinese side is responsible for filling the pipeline with crude and will hold talks with the relevant oil producing firms of the Russian Federation,\" Shkolnik said without elaborating. The pipeline will link China to Kazakhstan\'s pipeline network, including a branch shipping oil from Russia\'s Siberian fields. It will have an initial annual capacity of 10 million tonnes (200,000 bpd) and a peak level of 20 million tonnes. Apart from Russian crude, the new pipeline will also ship oil produced in southern Kazakhstan. Shkolnik said that the construction would be financed largely by a $600 million bank loan. \"It is going to be repaid in five to eight years. The date will depend on loan terms.\" Kazakhstan currently exports most of its oil via Russia, and besides building the China-bound pipeline is buying a tanker fleet for the Caspian Sea, to serve a new pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Ceyhan on Turkey\'s Mediterranean coast. Kazakhstan also trades oil via swaps with Caspian neighbour Iran, and is currently swapping about 100,000 tonnes a month. (Reuters)