A crude oil pipeline and a deepsea port designed to secure an alternative route for Chinese imports overland through Myanmar are both set to open at the end of January.

An affiliated refinery in China is months away from completion, according to reports.

The finished development should help ease China's reliance on shipments via the narrow Malacca Strait. Some 80% of China's oil imports travel this route.

PetroChina, the main investor in the facilities, has built 60% of the refinery in Yunnan province that borders Myanmar, designed to process the crude shipped via the pipeline.

Until the 200 000 bpd Anning refinery opens, the new pipeline can only be used to pump oil into tanks, providing limited near-term support to China's crude oil imports, which expanded by nearly 10% in 2014 to 6.2 million bpd. The pipeline has a capacity of 440 000 bpd.

A company official at China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) subsidiary Southeast Asia Pipeline Co. Ltd., which is in charge of building and managing the pipeline, said the 2400 km (1500 miles) line would open at the end of January 2015.

Crude oil brought by ship from the Middle East will be stored at oil tanks on Madae Island in Kyaukpyu Township prior to sending it to China through the recently constructed pipeline.

Large 100 000 t oil tankers will moor at Kyaukpyu Deep Sea Port as of January 2015, using the oil tanks of the China National Petroleum Corporation for storage.

About 450 000 barrels of oil will be sent to China per year. Myanmar will have the use of one tenth of it.

The Myanmar government will make a