HONG KONG—China is set to start the pumps at its first deep-water natural-gas project, an engineering feat using a Chinese-made platform designed to withstand typhoons and using hundreds of miles of undersea pipelines. The field is part of Beijing’s effort to more than double its use of gas to 10% of China’s energy mix by 2020, helping to wean the country off the dirtier coal that produces two-thirds of its electricity. The Liwan-3 gas field in the South China Sea about 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong is expected to go online by early next year and eventually to pump about 4% of the country’s gas supply. It has the potential to send more gas to China than current imports from Australia, China’s second-largest supplier of liquefied natural gas. For all its complexity, the $6.5 billion project is located well. The field is in undisputed waters in the South […]