Asian giants and economic rivals India and China are locked in battle to secure stakes in oil fields and blocks in the new energy haven of West Africa, officials and analysts here say.
"There is big, big competition going on between India and China for oil blocks in the region," says Narendra Taneja, an energy expert associated with the international oil and gas newspaper Upstream.
Taneja points to a report in a recent Indian Express newspaper report bemoaning the fact that India had lost a lucrative deal in Angola early this month.
Angola's state-owned Sonangol reportedly blocked an Indian move to buy Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell's 50-percent share in Block 18 for about US$620 million.
According to Taneja, India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had almost closed with Shell, "but the Chinese evidently cut a deal with the Angolan government at the last minute," resulting in Sonangol exercising its pre-emption rights.
This stymied Shell's move to sell its stake to ONGC, a deal that would have yielded about 5 million tonnes of crude oil daily for New Delhi from 2008 to 2009.
An Indian official says the sale is "still open," but for Taneja it illustrates the intense Chinese-Indian competition.
"China managed to swing the deal by offering aid to the tune of US$2 billion for a variety of projects to Angola, compared to India's offer of US$200 million for developing railways," Taneja explains.
Aid-for-oil is part of a deliberate strategy adopted by the Chinese leadership across West Africa, whose oil potential came into focus after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the analysts add.
The amount of oil in the region is yet to be mapped, but Indian officials point to US studies which say Washington can rely on Gulf of Guinea reserves to cut its dependence on crude from the volatile Middle East by 25 percent in the next decade.
"Washington is negotiating with Sao Tome and Principe to develop a naval base there to guard its oil interests in the region," says a foreign ministry official, asking to remain unnamed.
With China overtaking Japan to become the world's second largest oil consumer after the US, Beijing is aggressively building a network of energy-related ties throughout the world -- in the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Russia, the official says.
China used 5.46 million barrels of oil a day last year, compared with Japan's 5.43 million, according to the International Energy Agency. Beijing relies on overseas producers for one-third of supplies and accounts for about seven percent of world oil demand.
In contrast, India -- Asia's fourth-largest economy -- imports nearly 70 percent of its oil needs and last year consumed a little more than 2 million barrels a day.
A government paper predicts that by 2025, India will consume 7.4 million barrels a day.
Top Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao (
Indian officials admit India does not have the resources to compete barrel for barrel with China in West Africa.
"India had its era of influence in Africa in the heyday of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1960s and '70s. Today it is money that speaks and China has deeper pockets than India," Taneja said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
RSS