Currently, China’s crude from the Middle East and Africa must travel via tankers through the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca and South China Sea.

Authorities in Yunnan have submitted a proposal to the State Council on building a pipeline that would start in Kunming and then pass through Myanmar’s Mandalay city before ending at the deepwater port of Sittwe on the coast adjoining the Indian Ocean, the report said, citing an anonymous local government source.

“The proposed pipeline would be 1,200 km shorter than the ‘Malacca route’, the traditional route used to transport crude oil from the Middle East and Africa to Zhanjiang in South China's Guangdong province, and Ningbo in Zhejiang province," the report said.

“However, with the cost of the pipeline and associated infrastructure estimated at tens of billions of dollars, this pipeline would be worthwhile only because it would help improve China’s energy security.”

But this is not China's only pipeline option, according to a report in Asia Times Online. Plans are being considered build oil pipelines to China from Thailand, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Thailand proposal has received strong support from the Thai government.

Thailand's state energy conglomerate PTT and Chinese oil giant Sinopec announced in June that they were looking into the possibility of a new pipeline so that oil tankers from the Middle East wouldn't have to pass through the Strait of Malacca Strait. The new pipeline would save as much as a week of voyage time for crude oil shipments to China, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.