Posted on 01/02/2007 4:48:15 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BEIJING -- China's private entrepreneurs are joining big companies in searching abroad for oil to satisfy their nation's thirst, in the latest sign of how the world's fastest-growing major economy is roiling energy markets.
Perhaps the most successful of this new breed of wealthy Chinese wildcatter is Ni Zhaoxing, a 50-year-old businessman who has spent the last year prospecting for oil in western Canada after amassing a fortune in China's real-estate market. Mr. Ni's ZhongRong Group has struck oil in its Saskatchewan field, a find that eventually could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year.
China has been encouraging its big state oil companies to go abroad for years, aware that domestic oil fields don't have enough supply to meet growing demand in China. Government-run companies including China National Petroleum Corp. and Cnooc Ltd. have bought oil and gas fields in Central Asia, Africa and the Americas.
That push -- often into countries, such as Sudan or Iran, that have troubled ties with the U.S. -- coupled with China's stated aim of improving its ability to use armed force abroad to protect its global interests has raised alarms in Washington and other capitals. Western politicians and oil executives worry that Asia's state-owned oil companies are trying to lock up the world's resources in a bid to boost their nations' energy security. Some analysts counter that Chinese oil companies are actually spending only a fraction of what their Western peers are in acquiring overseas oil fields.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
BTTT!
It seems China can't figure their way out of oil either.
I've got the solution. What's China short of, ? something to burn to generate power right. And what do they have an abundance of, ? Chinese right. So they burn Chinese to generate power ! They solve the over population and power problems simultaneously. Ok just kidding.......................................sortta !!!
There was just a thread on how India (with China as one of their partners) was bidding on/getting a contract with IRAQ for oil production. Seeing as Iraq not only figures into our national security regarding the terrorist issue but also the oil issue - I can't say I'm too happy to have China involved in developing Iraqi oil.
China's thirst is, to a large extent, our thirst.
Much of it gets transformed into computers, cell phones and piles of plastic lining the aisles at WalMart.
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