Oil Rebounds, China's Crude Imports Surge

[Minstrel Boy]

Oil Rebounds, China's Crude Imports Surge

Fri Jan 21, 2005 05:17 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil rebounded from sharp recent losses on Friday as China reported a fresh record in crude imports and a U.S. cold snap was expected to keep up demand for heating fuels.

...

Customs data released on Friday showed China's crude imports hit a record 12.1 million tonnes in December, sending total 2004 imports to 122.7 million tonnes, a rise of almost 35 percent from last year.

Sharply higher oil demand in China, now the world's second biggest consumer, was partly behind the surge in oil prices last year to a record peak above $55 a barrel.

"We should expect record import volumes from China every month. Demand growth is slowing but is still growing faster than domestic production," said Gordon Kwan, director of oil and gas research at CLSA in Hong Kong.

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=7392215


Also from today:


China's risky scramble for oil

Petroleum World, Jan 21

Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one. So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.

That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.

The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20 percent chunk of the new firm. China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap....
...

"There is a growing recognition of future oil scarcity, or at least the end of growth," says Jim Meyer, director of The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London. "The challenge of producing more and more oil is getting more and more difficult."
http://www.petroleumworld.com/Lag012105.htm


From today as well:


Will Washington Tolerate A Chinese-Venezuelan Petro Pact?

In December 2004, President Chavez met with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Beijing to discuss a new bilateral agreement regarding access to Venezuela's energy market. In Chavez' words, "this is what is needed in the world in order to break with unilateralism." As a result, Caracas will help Beijing with additions to the latter's strategic oil reserves in exchange for Chinese investment in Venezuela's agricultural sector and the development of fifteen currently shut down oil fields. This meeting was preceded by Chavez's renewed calls for the creation of PetroSur, a Latin American version of OPEC. In an interview with IPS, political scientist Alberto Garrido, of the University of Los Andes, reasoned that Chavez "is trying to give a regional, Latin American dimension to his Bolivarian revolution, as reflected in documents from his movement that date back to far before he made it to power."

...

None of this can be welcome news to Washington policymakers who are having increasing difficulty finding, or even maintaining, stable sources of oil. With al-Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia, the insurgents' continuing sabotage of Iraqi and Colombian pipelines, and civil unrest in Nigeria, U.S. oil managers can only get more desperate in their search for reliable petro exports. With the largest proven oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere (77.8 billion barrels), bilateral deals with China, and an attractive six-day transport time to U.S. ports - as opposed to five weeks from the Middle East - Chavez is forcing Washington to take a more protracted look south. Whether the volatile Venezuelan leader is playing a reckless game with Washington that could get him swatted, or is adroitly acting in his country's best interests, is a question that could be explosively answered in a relatively short period.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012105_washington_tolerate.shtml

But it's not about oil. It's never been about oil. To suggest it is, is an outrageous conspiracy theory. It's about fanning the firestorm of freedom around the world. Booyah!

Or is freedom just another word for - ?

[makhno]

1. While Bush fiddles ...

... China is preparing for the future. Neo-liberal short term thinking has now rendered US foreign and economic policy completely ineffectual.

New American Century, my ass. The neocon nerds should stop playing with little tanks on their colorful maps of the Middle East and start thinking about diversifying the country's energy and manufacturing sources, which, as it looks now, are or will soon all be in enemy territory.

[UL_Approved]

2. Many things here to say

First of all, posting several articles at once in LBN is a new thing. I like it, but it is more at home in GD.

Second, China and the rest of the world see the handwriting on the wall. The peak oil problem is at hand, and superpowers are in a race to get the easy oil while it lasts. They want to secure rights to a reserve of petroleum before the rest of the world.

Third, this seems also to indicate the fear that firms have over U.S. oil seizing. Iraq puts us in the light of conquest, and these nations want assurance that they can deal with us before we get too powerful. A balance of power is a good thing. It keeps the world going.

[bin.dare]

3. enter the dragon and things are now different ...

... venezuela is a good case in point:

"The crucial difference between the recent U.S. support of the middle-class opposition in Venezuela ­ mainly through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID) ­ versus its earlier backing of the Somoza, Batista, Duvalier and Pinochet dictatorships, is that Washington can ill afford to antagonize the populist government from which it receives anywhere between 11% and 15% of its imported petroleum. This is one situation where Washington simply cannot risk an oil crisis for the sake of indulging the administration's numerous nostalgic cold warriors, like Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega and Undersecretary of State John Bolton. But despite the Bush administration's tacit support of the 2002 coup and the substantial funds that the NED poured into the failed recall referendum last August, Chavez has, so far, not given any indication that he intends to cut petroleum exports to the U.S. He did, however, tell Washington to not "even think about trying something similar in Venezuela," referring to what he claims was Washington's orchestrated coup against former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February, 2004. Should the U.S. follow this course, he optimistically observed that Venezuela "has enough allies on this continent to start a 100-year war," and that "U.S. citizens could forget about ever getting Venezuelan oil."

Enter the Dragon ..."

Will the US Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese Oil Pact?
By SETH DELONG
http://www.counterpunch.org/delong01182005.html