This Day, That Year

Item from June 11, 1997, in China Daily: Wang Xiaoyan, a Beijing resident, asks a technician from the city's gas and fuel company questions about the newly installed gas-burning fittings in her kitchen ... More than 1 million families will be natural gas users by the end of 2000, when the city will be supplied with 850 million cubic meters of the gas each year.

Enough natural gas from Shaanxi province is expected to arrive in Beijing by Sept 30, via an 860-kilometer pipeline, to supply 80 percent of the city's needs ... Natural gas is better for the environment because it produces less exhaust smoke than coal gas.

Natural gas is playing an increasingly important role in meeting Beijing's energy needs, accounting for about 20 percent of the capital's total energy consumption last year, according to major supplier Beijing Gas Group Corp.