Posted on 09/07/2008 9:44:24 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
China has secured Baghdad's first post-Saddam Hussein oil deal by reviving a 1997 concession to exploit reserves on the al-Ahdab field south of the capital.
The two countries are expected to formally sign an agreement later this month that will earn the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) a fixed price for every barrel it produces in Iraq.
While China opposed the Iraq war and stood back from post-war rebuilding, Beijing has quietly outflanked its global rivals to grab a large slice of Iraq's oil industry. The pioneers of its overseas quest for fuel are already exploring vast tracts in the Kurdish north of the war-torn nation.
With an extensive foothold in the only part of the country where new oil wells have been built since 2003, Chinese firms are already believed to have more personnel than their American rivals.
America contested every step of China's drive to expand its oil industry in central Asia and Africa for more than a decade, viewing the push overseas as a boost for Beijing's diplomatic standing.
Beijing's success in the latest battleground represents a double blow for Washington whose troops are still fighting daily for Iraq's security. With the return of stability, Baghdad hopes that its output can triple to six million barrels per day.
The latest Chinese outpost on the ground is a mountain camp pitched 1,400 metres above sea-level by CNPC, which has signed a contract to conduct the exploration of a 44 x 12 mile tract. The sensitivity of the Chinese presence is betrayed by the camp's heavy fortifications. It is overlooked by watchtowers and surrounded by a square earth berm. Scientists in the 100-strong team only leave to conduct surveys in heavily-armed convoys. Fierce-looking members of the Surchi, a notorious local tribe, stand guard at the gate.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Beijing’s success in the latest battleground represents a double blow for Washington whose troops are still fighting daily for Iraq’s security. With the return of stability, Baghdad hopes that its output can triple to six million barrels per day.”
Swell!
China was also notorious about ignoring safety as a consideration for it’s staffers and government representatives during the worst of the fighting.
As the UN and most US and international corporations pulled out, many feared that this disregard for its people would give China a leg up later. It seems that it may have helped indeed.
That oil is closer to them anyway. Let them have it and ramp up domestic production!!
Drill baby, drill!
By design?What happens if the price of a barrel of oil worldwide drops below their fixed price?Sounds as if that might be just a little too risky.
""The Chinese are strong in service contracts but not in exploration rights," said Asti Hawrami, the Kurdish oil minister."
It appears the ChiComs cut a deal with "Kurdistan", not the government in Baghdad.
ChiComs fomenting a little Kurdish independence movement?
Implications may be many.
yitbos
Ungrateful bastages!
But I thought that was what the DEMS said President Bush already did.
.. oh wait .. they said "No war for EARL!"
No blood for oil (American)....
Has anyone checked their brains...? We are not even going to capture the oil we wasted thousands of lives to secure?
We spent billions to secure the country from Hussein and now they are selling to our Asian rival?
Is Bush brain f-ing dead?
It also gives China a vested interest in keeping terrorists out of Iraq.
It’s the Demo controlled Congress with the problem, not Bush. They pitched a hissy when it looked like Iraq was going to just give the contracts to US companies. Didn’t want us to look bad you know.
I do not recall any contesting of expansion of Chinese oil companies. Can anyone indicate how the US government contested expansion of the Chinese oil industry?
I don’t recall any protest either about China expansion on oil. Maybe we need to do some research.
Yup! Send Iraq a bill for saving their ass. Did they offer us anything? I think we got screwed.
http://www.twq.com/06winter/docs/06winter_leverett.pdf — this provides the history of China going to the Middle East to get more oil contractors up until 2006.
The contests were by American private companies. They are just more reliable and better competitors.
The ChiComs are big in rogue states like Sudan, Venezuela, Cuba and I don't know where else (Mali? Syria?). That is production. The ChiComs are big buyers everywhere.
(note: I am not saying that the Russian move into Georgia was not important. It was, since it indicates that we are facing a more acerbic Russia, and also because it is an attack on a sovereign state that happens to not only be pro-West, but has also put its money where its mouth is by participating in major pro-West initiatives ....like being the 3rd contributor of soldiers to Iraq, even though it is a tiny country. Thus I am not making light of the Georgia thing, but it is ironic when the veritable take-over to two CONTINENTS by the Chinese did not even elicit a thousandth ....maybe even less .... of the hue-and-cry that stemmed from the Georgia conflict).
China has been locking up the resources in the region (ranging from oil, with Angola being the number 1 producer of Chinese oil, to minerals and other deposits, to even farmland with more and more Chinese farmers moving in). Furthermore, they have been tapping into the consumer markets in both areas (it might come as a surprise to many here, but most people in Africa are not starving zombies with big-bellies and flies zipping around dried-out mouths, nor are they AIDS/TB/Diptheria/Ebola biological bombs .....although based on what one sees on TV that's the only thing that appears to be happening there). Then there is the physical land-space ....ranging from opening up military bases in the Sudan (under the statement that it is for security purposes) to more and more political and economic co-operation (the Chinese never have strings attached), to even an educational approach (the best and brightest normally went to the US or UK for an education, but China has been doing all it can to have them consider China as an alternative).
While all this is going on there is hardly no response at all. Even people you'd normally expect to have a certain modicum of intelligence (e.g. FReepers) are talking about beetle dung.
Anyways, there were people who were talking about how we need to give Georgia and Chechnya nuclear weaponry so as to enable them to stand up against Russia (after the Georgia crisis). Two entire continents are slowly getting swept up by Chinese influence, and no one gives a bl@@dy damn about it.
That is either myopia, rabid stupidity, or a certain level of masochism (hey, I read that Western populations are dropping at a very fast rate, and may soon reach a precipice point where the drop is beyond redemption. Maybe the West does have a suicide wish ....all signs indicate that to be somewhat of a probability).
Anyways, right now I am in 'Beetle Dung' land ...moved back just under 2 years ago to work for some emerging/frontier market Funds. Making more money, and with more opportunities, than I would have thought of 2 years ago. I guess the beetle dung is quite lucrative .....I am certain that over in South America the 'guano' is also not too bad.
Too bad the Chinese think the same thing.
Anyways, now to the other hundred or so threads talking about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. I hear some Russian irregulars blew up a small by-pass railway line with explosives ......
After 5000 years the ChiComs still write with pictographs.
yitbos
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