China in Line as U.S. Rival for Canada Oil

[LiviaOlivia]

The New York Times
December 23, 2004
China in Line as U.S. Rival for Canada Oil
By SIMON ROMERO

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 21 - China's thirst for oil has brought it to the doorstep of the United States.

Chinese energy companies are on the verge of striking ambitious deals in Canada in efforts to win access to some of the most prized oil reserves in North America.

The deals may create unease for the first time since the 1970's in the traditionally smooth energy relationship between the United States and Canada.

Canada, the largest source of imported oil for the United States, has historically sent almost all its exports of oil south by pipeline to help quench America's thirst for energy. But that arrangement may be about to change as China, which has surpassed Japan as the second-largest market for oil, flexes its muscle in attempts to secure oil, even in places like the cold boreal forests of northern Alberta, where the oil has to be sucked out of the sticky, sandy soil.

<snip>

"Watch the Americans have a hissy fit if a Chinese incursion materializes," Claudia Cattaneo, a Calgary-based energy columnist for The National Post, recently wrote. "So far, the Americans have taken Canada's energy for granted."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/business/worldbusiness/23canada.html

[daleo]

1. I hope a "hissy fit" doesn't include troops

I know Bush shouldn't mind (free trade and all that), but I have my doubts that he would long allow Canada to sell to China in preference to the U.S. (i.e. even if China were willing to pay more for the oil).

[Maple]

2. Bush wouldn't

have a say in the matter.

Because not even Bush is dumb enough to attack Canada.

[Massacure]

8. Yup, the he would go the way Napoleon and Hitler did.

The U.S. has never liked cold weather combat. There are only a few in the military that are comfortable with it. Getting 250,000 troops prepared to fight in Canada would be a organizational nightmare.

[Demeter]

9. Bush Already Attacked Canada--Economically

Bush banned Canadian beef--so much for NAFTA. It is only fair play that Canada decides to ship its oil to a country that will appreciate it.

[tuvor]

17. Not to mention the softwood lumber BS.

Free trade, my ass. Long past time to play ball with someone who'll play FAIR.

[0007]

21. ....and the prescription drug fuck around

[KurtNYC]

15. This is a bet by China that oil is going to stay high ($$)

China is betting on oil staying above $30USD (or whatever number it takes to make it economically reasonable to suck oil out of sand). There is a lot of oil that doesn't get pumped unless the market prices are high enough -- Brent crude, north sea oil, etc. The bigger equation is the Cost of extraction + the cost of transportation + the cost to refine (varies with the quality of oil) + cost of delivery to market.

Last I heard the Russians were pumping at only one-third of their capacity so in theory they could pump much more. But again it depends on pipelines and refineries.

China also made a deal to buy Iranian oil recently so they seem to be in a move-forward mode recently.

I have to think this deal strengthens the Looney. The Canadian government had a target of $.83 to the USD feeling that anything stronger would hurt trade with the US. But the Looney rides with the price of oil and that seems certain to stay strong.

[Brundle_Fly]

3. Yeah

Iraq is one thing, attacking Canada, is like attacking Sweden.

You just don't do it. There is no reason for it.

and China would find it unacceptable. :P

oh as would the EU, Asia, Aussies, Middle East, etc etc etc....
The Brits would take it personally

[izzie]

4. That is interesting as I think I read China has bought a lot of oil

from all the countries around Asia also. China is moving up I would say. And they make so much of the worlds steel also. Plus a lot of our parts for our military toys.And hold so much of our debt.

[shadowknows69]

5. then again

Canada could have a catastrophic "terrorist attack" and we could have to ursurp power there for the good of our NATO ally.

[Spazito]

6. Canada has needed to diversify it's export market to reduce...

the effect the US economy has on us and this is a big step toward that goal. Bush's 'great' diplomatic skills have led many countries to look at other possibilities.

[Wright Patman]

7. 'Christmas has been cancelled'

That's what millions of parents would have to tell their kids if the relationship with China ever really turns sour.

I can see an explanation in the works, though, related to this article. If China and Canada are cooperating, parents can tell their kids that Canada would not allow Santa and his reindeer through its airspace.

[colonel odis]

10. the rest of the world seems to be figuring out they don't need the u.s.

which pretty much spells the end for our country.

russia and china can step up and fill the role of superpower. nations that used to look to us can look to them for many of the same things, sans the idealistic notions of democracy and fair play. however, the bushies have shown us to be without those attributes.

they can buy up the oil. they can make the means of transportation. they can take away every one of our trading partners.

and we'll sit here and wither like norma desmond.

[Osamasux]

11. Surely the great oil minds of Bush and Cheney saw this coming.

:7

[arwalden]

12. Why Do I Find This Story To Be Slightly Amusing??

[Dem2theMax]

25. You're not the only one.

I feel the need to tell Canada to STARVE THE BEAST. :evilgrin:

[Minstrel Boy]

13. Chavez is in China for five days working out a petroleum deal.

Venezuela wants to diversify its markets, too. And the US will be the loser.

Iran, too, is a major supplier to China. Think they'll let the neocons
waltz into Tehran and tear up the contracts like they did in Baghdad?

Nah, the war has nothing to do with oil! :crazy:

[FreeCajun]

14. Annexation of Canada in forseeable future?

"Fox News" AKA "5th column nightly" has already set up shop.

[hangloose]

16. lOOKS LIKE WERE ABOUT TO ANNEX ALBERTA

[bin.dare]

19. no need for an invasion, just have ...

... the National Democratic Institute and the Republican International Institute pump $65 million dollars into a western provences pro-democracy group, a scarlet revolution, that leads to seccession and ultimate (re?)unification with america. Get the National Endowment for Democracy involved (for a few extra million) and to add a gloss of legitimacy.

It is that easy, didn't you know?


DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections By DAVE LINDORFF
http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff12142004.html

NED Targets Venezuela by Bill Berkowitz
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/NED_Targets_Venezuela.html

[CHIMO]

20. Already Progressing

The Man Behind Stephen Harper

That neo-conservative agenda may read as if it has been lifted straight from the dusty desk drawers of Ronald Reagan: lower taxes, less federal government, and free markets unfettered by social programs such as medicare that keep citizens from being forced to pull up their own socks. But their arguments also echo the local landscape, where Big Oil sets the tone -- usually from a U.S. head office -- and Pierre Trudeau's 1980 National Energy Policy left the conviction that Confederation was rigged against the West.

They also share one beef not confined to Alberta: exasperation at Ottawa's perennial hand-wringing over Quebec. In a 1990 essay in the now defunct West magazine, Barry Cooper, Flanagan's closet departmental pal, advised Quebec separatists that if they were heading for the federal exit, they'd better get on with it -- or, as he now sums it up, "The sooner those guys are out of here the better." Cooper and David Bercuson, now director of the university's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, promptly followed up with Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec, a polemic that rocketed to the top of best-seller lists and sent shock-waves across the country.

Cooper's article was entitled "Thinking the Unthinkable," a headline that might have been slapped on most of the Calgary School's work. Revelling in their unrepentant iconoclasm, its members take pride in airing once verboten ideas that they have helped to convert to common currency in the national debate. "If we've done anything, we've provided legitimacy for what was the Western view of this country," says Cooper, the group's de facto spokesman. "We've given intelligibility and coherence to a way of looking at it that's outside the St. Lawrence Valley mentality."

But what has put the Calgary School on mainstream radar is not merely its academic rabble-rousing, it's the group's growing influence on Canadian realpolitik -- first through Preston Manning, whose Reform Party tugged the ruling Liberals inexorably to the right; now through Stephen Harper, who commands the best parliamentary showing for any combination of conservatives in a decade -- and sits only a vote of confidence away from toppling the government. In both cases, the linchpin has been Flanagan, once Manning's right-hand man, who masterminded Harper's campaign and remains his closest confidant.

http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/31934.php

[bin.dare]

22. WIPS, Western Independence Party of Saskatchewan ...

... the Western Independence Party of Saskatchewan, a provincial party dedicated to removing us from the corrupted clutches of Ottawa. It's defining goal is to separate from Canada, the only way to escape the burdensome over-control and heavy taxation.

The Alberta Separation party has the same vision. And, as our last federal election showed, the entire west, from B.C. to Manitoba, has had enough of Eastern domination and exploitation. Ultimately, as each province gains independence, a new Western Canada would be formed, one that won't have just 90 seats, doomed to never, ever out-vote the East.

http://www.wips.ca/

[Wilber_Stool]

18. I hijacked these links from

mcgowanjm in a locked post on the same subject. Click on them at your own risk. I just finished reading them and I'm off to disembowel myself.
Merry Christmas.

[Old and In the Way]

23. Locked Post is here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1096736&mesg_id=1096886&page=

I agree, and there is another security dimension at play here in SA that should sober up the pro-warriors... from jmcgowanjm's post in this other thread.....



On 10 November 2004, the India Daily reported that,
"Russian President Putin is taking a lead role in the
most powerful coalition of regional and superpowers in
the world. The coalition consists of India, China, Russia
and Brazil. This will challenge the superpower supremacy
of America." … "He wants to establish a long-
term Russian footprint in Latin America in order to
expand Moscow's geopolitical influence in the region. Brazil
is very open to the coalition concept where these large
countries support each other in term of trade,
economics, international politics and defense."

Just this single strategic move means that the
new coalition embraces just over three quarters of the
world's total population, eighty percent of its natural
resources, and a majority of technical and scientific
experts.

What absolutely no one outside Russia and Venezuela
knew until two weeks ago, is that 20 of the fifty Mig 29 SMTs
are fully equipped to carry and fire the devastating SS-N-25
"Onyx", a devastating and
completely unstoppable Mach 2.9 ramjet anti-ship cruise
missile which skims the waves at twenty feet, before delivering
a knock out blow to its maritime target more than 200
kilometers away.

So great is the kinetic energy at the point of impact on
the target, that Onyx can sink an American aircraft carrier
or supertanker using only a conventional penetrating
warhead. Those scientists who might doubt this
should calculate the impact energy of 5,500 pounds of
missile striking a carrier or tanker at a terminal velocity of
2,460 feet per second. It is understood that Russia is
providing Venezuela with a stockpile of forty anti-ship
Onyx missiles.

Concurrently on the other side of the world, more
pieces of the strategic jigsaw were falling into place, and on
2 December 2004 the Asia Times published "China Rocks
the Geopolitical Boat with Iran Oil Deal", which is probably one
of the top stories of the century.

America is already desperately short of energy, and it
can only get worse. Iraq is producing nothing at all as usual,
and the Republican Guard will ensure it stays that way.
OPEC will slow down production in January because it
actually has to. If the OPEC countries keep pumping at
their present outrageous rates to please America, they
will eventually destroy their own economies by
terminally damaging their producing wells. or face
devastating and total economic ruin.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/11-10-04.asp

[Wilber_Stool]

24. Well

It seems that I forgot to include the links, doesn't it.