Hi Julius. I was watching PTR, found it interesting in that 1) This is number 1 oil and gas enterprise in China, yet, it did not arouse enthusiasm; 2) What allegedly drags down the price was human rights issues; 3) PTR came out of a new division of the market, intended to make the market more accessible to foreign capital. Looking at the division chart, though, my feeling is, is this going to work? I'll post it if you'd like to take a look.
Also, somehow, I feel that China sooner or later has to go through a big shake out. This is because, during the financial crisis of 1998, Chinese currency was not devalued for political reasons. Therefore, its economic system, both state owned and non-state owned, is full of redundancy and inefficiency. A window of re-organization was missed. Therefore, a crisis is being conceived now. The more the surrounding countries thrive in the post-crisis era, the nearer will be China's crisis. One evidence is, anti-corruption campaigns have started to aim at big guys at higher levels - The Cheng case. The problem is, how long will China be able to fence off smugglers with political means. The bottom line is, I don't see very clearly where China's oil industry is going to go. Any insights on wether WTO entry could help with the situation? |
