China reaps harvest from Russia sanctions

China is gaining an edge in energy deals with Russia as Moscow faces sanctions pressure from the conflict in Ukraine.

The latest energy accords announced in Beijing on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit suggest that China is increasing its access to Russian resources while resisting demands for more favorable financial terms.

At a signing ceremony on November 9, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin sealed a memorandum of understanding for a second Siberian gas pipeline on a western route that Russia has promoted unsuccessfully for years.

The preliminary commitment to the project known as the Altai pipeline, named for a remote Russian border region, follows an agreement in May on an eastern Siberian gas line to supply China’s coastal cities and industrial northeast.

Resource-hungry Chinese lead railroad drive in Africa

MOMBASA, Kenya, Dec. 4 (UPI) — The Chinese, investing heavily in Africa to secure its oil and other raw materials for their expanding economy, are spearheading a new era of railroad building to unlock the continent’s interior.This is an echo of the long-gone colonial empires when a century ago British and French engineers first opened up Africa to plunder its riches.

The railroad frenzy is being accompanied by a massive push to build several major ports along the coast of East Africa to accelerate exports across the Indian Ocean, mostly to China, India and Japan, as well as lay down a network of oil and gas pipelines to these ports.

Chinese to Invest in British Nuclear Power

LONDON — Britain said on Thursday that it would allow Chinese firms to buy stakes in British nuclear power plants and eventually acquire majority holdings.

The agreement, which comes with caveats, opens the way for China’s fast-growing nuclear industry to play a significant role in Britain’s plans to proceed with construction of its first new reactor in nearly two decades.

China’s Strategy in Afghanistan

Beijing is keen to increase its involvement in the country following the planned U.S. withdrawal in 2014. But security problems may interfere.

For a relatively small drilling operation, China National Petroleum Corporation’s (CNPC) project in Afghanistan’s Sar-e-Pul province has a large footprint. Several layers of fences and containers serving as blast walls surround the extraction site, which includes dormitories, an office complex and various security structures. Throughout the day, trucks ferry in equipment and more containers. On the outside, the faces are all Afghan, but CNPC’s logo and bright red Chinese slogans are impossible to miss.

The Battle for Canada’s Oil Sands

One hundred and seventy billion: That is the number of economically recoverable barrels of oil the Canadian oil sands are estimated to hold. It is a big prize. At $100 per barrel, it is a $17.3 trillion prize, enough to pay the official U.S. federal debt with trillions to spare. In a world of global population growth and “peak oil” constraints, it is an economy-changing, potentially country-changing prize that could skyrocket in value even higher in the years ahead.

But who will benefit from this supposed money-gushing cornucopia?

The Canadian oil sands are so expansive that America’s northern neighbors are practically begging for investors to develop them. “Our oil sands are the largest energy project in the entire world,” said Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver on a recent trip to China. “We simply don’t have enough capital in Canada.”

It was a shocking statement—not because of what he said, but because of where he said it. Traditionally, Canada has looked to the United States for oil infrastructure development. But those days may be ending. When President Obama refused to permit the proposed Keystone pipeline that would have brought oil from Alberta to Texas refineries, he may have unwittingly changed the special relationship.

For now, Canada’s oil is landlocked, with no way to market. Existing pipelines to America are filled to capacity. But hundreds of thousands of extra barrels of oil per day are set to come onto the market over the next half decade as the oil sands operations are built. Trillions of dollars’ of oil will flow somewhere; that much you can be sure of. If America doesn’t want it for political reasons, the oil companies will find another customer.

China is already pointing the way. In January, Reuters reported that Canada’s oil industry is experiencing an “Asian invasion.” Most recently, Chinese government-owned Petro China purchased the Athabasca Oil Sands MacKay River project. It also owns an option agreement to purchase Athabasca’s Dover project. Last July, cnooc, another Chinese state-owned company, paid more than a billion dollars for Opti Canada’s 35 percent stake in its Long Lake project. That project will extract over 70,000 barrels of oil per day when up and running. In 2010, Chinese state-owned Sinopec spent $4.65 billion for a chunk of Syncrude Canada Ltd—one of the world’s largest oil sands mining operations. Sinopec also owns 50 percent of Canada’s Northern Lights project. Not long before, China Investment Corp., a giant state-owned sovereign wealth fund, offered $1.25 billion to help Penn West Energy develop oil sands leases. Canada’s Husky Energy has been owned by interests in Hong Kong for decades.

Full article: The Battle for Canada’s Oil Sands (The Trumpet)