In the city of Horgos in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Ma Yunfang, a quality inspector, showed up at 10:00 a.m. sharp to start her daily work at the Horgos Metering Station of the China-Kazakhstan Natural Gas Pipeline. After working for eight years elsewhere in China, Ma decided to come back to her hometown in Yining City, which is about 100 kilometers away from Horgos. She and her colleagues' job is to complete 12 inspections on a daily basis to ensure the delivery of more than 100 million cubic meters of gas.

The China-Central Asia natural gas pipeline is China's first overland cross-border energy channel for natural gas. Running from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, via southern Kazakhstan to Horgos, the pipeline is about 10,000 kilometers long, making it the world's longest natural gas pipeline. Since it went into operation in December 2009, it has imported over 300 billion cubic meters of natural gas.