China will potentially build 11 more gas reserve bases to reinforce the country's natural gas supply, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Wednesday.

The candidate places, nine of which are in northern and central provinces, include Pingdingshan in Henan province, Changchun in Jilin province, Daqing in Heilongjiang province and Erdos in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the report said.

China Petroleum's engineering and planning institute estimated that China's natural gas demand will hit 350 billion to 400 billion cubic meters in 2020; that means the reserve will reach 70 billion to 100 billion cubic meters.

The construction of natural gas bases is meant to smooth out the gaping peak-to-valley deviations in supply and ensure stability, the report said.

China will possess 30 billion to 45 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in deep salt rock mineral deposits in 10 years, said Yang Chunhe, researcher at the Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics of Chinese Academy of Sciences based in Wuhan, Hubei province. Yang's estimation was 10-times more than the current reserve, the report said.

China has four reserve bases that are under construction or completed, one in Tianjin, two in Jiangsu province and one in Hebe province. All four will be put into operation by 2012, the report said.

China's total pipeline length was scheduled to reach about 100,000 kilometers by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) and the country currently has about 50,000 kilometers of pipelines, the report said.