Nov 3 (Reuters) - China has pumped 16.88 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Central Asia since the startup of a massive transnational pipeline in late 2009, operator China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) said on Thursday.

The pipeline, with an expected annual capacity of 30 bcm by 2012, spans nearly 2,000 kilometres in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before entering China's northwestern Xinjiang region.

CNPC, parent of PetroChina Co Ltd , plans to build more pipelines in Central Asian countries with local partners and intends to almost double the capacity of the gas pipe system by 2015. (Reporting by Jim Bai and Ken Wills; editing by Chris Lewis)