After three years of construction, the Myanmar-China natural gas pipeline has started deliveries, a development that is expected to curtail the country's heavy dependence on importing energy through the narrow Strait of Malacca and help diversify its energy import channels.

The pipeline will benefit investors from all four of the countries involved in financing and building it, and it will help to improve Myanmar's own energy supply, which is crucial to that country's economic development, said Wang Dongjin, the new president of China National Petroleum Corp.

The 793-kilometer pipeline starts at Kyaukpyu on Myanmar's western coast and enters southwestern China at Ruili in Yunnan province. Deliveries officially began on Sunday.