China’s oil juggernaut (From Texas to Sudan, China is snatching up oil fields.)

[pampango]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/101207/china%E2%80%99s-oil-juggernaut

Thanks to a booming economy, China is now the planet's leading consumer of energy. The 2.25 billion tons of oil it guzzled last year easily surpassed America's 2.17 billion tons. Chinese President Hu Jintao last year pledged to curb his country's fossil fuel consumption by seeking renewable energy and nuclear alternatives. That said, China still consumes far less oil per person than the United States.

The amount of money spent and the communist country's quiet tenacity in seeking out new supplies, often in the face of local hostility, are a firm reminder that China is thirsty for oil, and getting thirstier by the day.

CNOOC returned to the U.S. this year and, with relatively little fuss, made a $1.1 billion offer for a stake in 600,000 acres of southern Texas oil and gas fields. The Texas acquisition is part of China’s staggering global fossil fuel investment spree this year, which has also seen it snap up concessions in Argentina, Canada and Africa. Just this week, Beijing-based Sinopec, Asia's biggest refiner, agreed to buy all of Occidental Petroleum's oil and gas assets in Argentina for $2.45 billion, bringing Chinese bids for overseas energy assets to a record $38.8 billion this year.

The Texas deal, seen as a possible precursor to further investment in the U.S., has yet to be approved. First, the Committee on Foreign Investment will decide whether CNOOC's investments in Iran contravene U.S. sanctions laws. Reports, however, say the investment is unlikely to meet opposition.

[madrchsod]

1. might as well sell our oil fields to china.....

we`ve sold everything else to them.