Fears of Chinese land grab as Beijing's billions buy up resources

[Elmore Furth]

Source: The Independent

By Sarah Arnott

Saturday, 2 October 2010

State-owned Sinopec clinched the deal with Spain's Repsol yesterday to buy 40 per cent of its Brazilian business, giving China's largest oil company access to Repsol Brasil's estimated reserves of 1.2 billion barrels of oil and gas. The whopping price tag for Repsol Brasil – which values the company at nearly twice previous estimates – is a sign of China's willingness to pay whatever it takes to lock in its future energy supplies and avoid social unrest. It will give the company enough cash to develop all its current oil projects, including two fields in the Santos Basin.

The Repsol deal is not China's first in Brazil. In February last year, Sinopec stumped up a $10bn loan to Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, in return for guaranteed supplies of 10,000 barrels of oil every day for the next 10 years.

It also follows a slew of similar deals across the world. While much of the developed world is baulking at its debts in the aftermath of the financial crisis, China has continued a global spending spree of unprecedented proportions, snapping up everything from oil and gas reserves to mining concessions to agricultural land, with vast reserves of US dollars.

This year alone, Chinese companies have laid out billions of dollars buying up stakes in Canada's oil sands, a Guinean iron ore mine, oil fields in Angola and Uganda, an Argentinian oil company and a major Australian coal-bed methane gas company.


Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fears-of-chinese-land-grab-as-beijings-billions-buy-up-resources-2095451.html

[msongs]

1. lol the USA is spending $500 bil a year to fight....the taliban instead nt

[tomm2thumbs]

2. +1 - because George Bush had a knack for world politik'n

[thunder rising]

3. $500B borrowed from China

[thecrow]

4. The Chinese are smart

they diversify

[The Northerner]

7. indeed

and as resources become more scarce they'll be more conditioned to thrive.

[bloomington-lib]

5. We're funding that and getting cheap poisonous plastic crap in return

[hendo]

6. China is funding us ;) NT

[Raster]

8. George W. Bush* = the TRUE Manchurian Candidate

And of course, the National Village Idiot, in one convenient, fucked-up package.