Though challenges and risks will be unavoidable during the construction of the pipeline, China is keen to implement it in order to reduce its dependence on oil imports by tanker through the Strait of Malacca, through which it currently imports around 80% of its oil needs. The proposed pipe would link Pakistan's deepwater port of Gwadar, which is close to the Iranian border and is partly financed by Beijing, with China's remote western regions. Pakistan also hopes to secure Chinese investment in a large refinery complex. However, the route over the Himalayas would be undeniably expensive and a challenging engineering feat, and once the oil reached China it would still have to be shipped thousands of kilometres further east to coastal areas, where most energy demand is centred. "At the moment it is just an idea that we have brought forward, but the Chinese side have said they are interested," Naeem Khan, commercial and economic counsellor at the Pakistani Embassy in Beijing, is reported a saying. "It would be part of a larger trade corridor. We have already agreed to upgrade the Karakoram highway (between the two nations) and the pipeline would go in tandem with that." Private and state-owned Chinese oil companies are also in talks with Pakistan about construction of a refinery at Gwadar, which Islamabad would like to turn into a regional energy hub. Officials want to build a refinery and petrochemical complex with an initial 10m tons/yr (200,000brl.d) capacity, later expanding to 21m tons/yr, Khan said.