China’s natural gas imports via pipeline rose to a record high last month as the government sought to diversify its supply sources for the fuel.

Shipments increased for a second month to 2 million metric tons in May, data from the General Administration of Customs in Beijing show today. That’s up 27 percent from a year ago and is the highest level since Bloomberg started tracking the figures in February 2010.

China has built new gas-import pipelines “on account of energy security,” according to Gong Jinshuang, a senior engineer at China National Petroleum Corp. The world’s largest energy consumer last month reached a $400 billion, 30-year deal to receive its first gas from Russia. In October, the nation starting taking supplies from Myanmar using a pipeline with a designed capacity of 12 billion cubic meters a year.

“With the new pacts with Russia and Myanmar gradually increasing shipment, China will see more imports coming through pipeline,” Gong said by phone from Beijing today.

Supplies from Turkmenistan, which accounted for 88 percent of China’s imports last year, climbed 20 percent in May from a year earlier to 1.64 million tons, the data show. Shipments from Myanmar were at 155,712 tons.

Liquefied petroleum gas imports more than doubled from a year earlier to 729,838 tons last month, according to the data. That’s the highest since at least 2008.