Intense Chinese Interest In Albertan Tar Sands - Globe & Mail

[hatrack]

BEIJING — China's investment appetite for the Alberta oil sands has climbed so strongly that it could be importing 400,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada within the next seven years, Natural Resources Minister John McCallum says. The Chinese oil ambitions in Canada, which intensified yesterday when Mr. McCallum met two of China's most powerful oil executives, are a key element in the Liberal government's aggressive push to diversify Canada's energy sales away from its traditional U.S. markets in the aftermath of the softwood-lumber dispute.

Despite denials from Ottawa, the government's new strategy of pitching oil to China is widely seen as a pressure tactic against Washington after its refusal to comply with the NAFTA softwood ruling. The Americans are ignoring a ruling by a North American free-trade agreement panel that U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber are illegal under U.S. trade law. The New York Times this week described Ottawa's campaign as "a series of subtle threats" against the administration of President George W. Bush.

Mr. McCallum held meetings in Beijing yesterday with the presidents of two of China's biggest state-owned oil companies. "They expressed strong interest in investing in the oil sands," he said in an interview. "Clearly they are ambitious in their thinking. They are definitely, seriously interested." He said the companies, PetroChina and CNOOC Ltd., were "very positive" in their response to his pitch to invest in Canada. They are likely to get a more welcoming response from Canada than from the United States, where CNOOC's bid to acquire the American oil company Unocal was blocked by an angry political reaction.

Mr. McCallum said he received the 400,000-barrels-a-day estimate yesterday from Chinese and Canadian investors in Beijing, who called it an "ambitious but realistic target" for China's aspirations in the Canadian oil patch. If the prediction is accurate, China's oil imports from Canada by 2012 will reach one-quarter of the current level of American oil imports from Canada, allowing Canada to make a substantial cut in its dependence on the United States, which buys about 85 per cent of Canada's oil exports."

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051014.wxchina1014/BNStory/Front/

[wakeme2008]

1. thanks Bush

One less country to buy oil from. I guess your Saudi friends will be happy over this. :grr:

[applegrove]

2. Every country in the world is doing stuff to try and forge alliances

outside of Washington's influence. Bush is only in power to serve your crazy delusional elites who cannot stand the idea of not being the top country in the world - 100 years from now - and will destroy anything to keep power. Despite the fact you only have 5% of the population of the world. And that we all, in the west, got on fine with hard work and good ideas even though we were never "top country".

Everyone is doing it. Everyone. We have all learned our lesson about the wounded and punative beast America was in the Bush years. And if it happened once - it could happen again.

So we are all safer if we sell to many, many countries. I mean killing the UN was on Bush agenda for a while - and what did he expect - we would all just say - "fine, you want not International Criminal Court - fine with us".

Everyone has worked there asses off for generations to create a UN and other institutions. Nobody wants to play with the kid who walks up to the castle in the sandpile and destroys a week's work (a lifetime to a child) because the bully wants to make his own.

[wordpix]

3. there goes northern BC

One of the last great wilderness areas left in N. America.

[applegrove]

4. Like the people owning the rights to the land in northern BC cannot

negotiate & finally - participate in the world economy - & think it through for themselves.