China's growing role in Africa reflects a thirst for oil
archive.gulfnews.com
02/26/2006 09:08 PM | Financial Times
In less than 10 years China has secured oil production and exploration deals in a swathe of countries reaching across Africa from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea.
Its rapid emergence in African oil reflects the explosive growth of its energy needs and its desire in common with the United States to find sources outside the Middle East. China relies on Africa for between one-quarter and one-third of its oil imports.
"It's the same as US policies [on oil]," says Li Zhibiao, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state think-tank. "China wants to have diversified channels in case of disruptions."
Its first big foray came in late 1996 when state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation took a 40 per cent stake in concession blocks in Sudan originally held by Chevron of the United States.
Major presence
The Chinese co-built a 1,500-kilometre pipeline from the oilfields to Port Sudan, and a refinery near Khartoum. China now takes half or more of Sudan's oil exports, while western oil majors have kept their distance.
US oil companies are barred from doing business there. Remaining Canadian, Swedish and Austrian interests were almost all sold in 2002 and 2003 after pressure from church and human rights groups over the role of oil in fuelling the long war in southern Sudan.
More recently, China has invested heavily in larger African oil exporters.
In Angola, China National Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) bought into a BP-operated offshore block in 2004, securing its entry with a $2 billion credit line to rebuild the country's infrastructure.
It has tied up with Angola's Sonangol to run another block, previously run by Total. China is already Angola's second customer for oil after the United States.
In Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer, the state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corporation is to pay $2.3 billion for a 45 per share of output from an offshore block.
Preferential treatment
CNPC is in talks over a Nigerian refinery in an effort to win preferential treatment in oil block allocations.
CNPC also has exploration deals with Algeria and Niger and a stake in exploration in Chad, a country that officially deals with Taiwan rather than China.
Sinopec has signed an evaluation contract in Gabon, where activities headed by Shell and Total have dwindled.
In Equatorial Guinea, where US groups dominate a surging oil business, China is said to be providing military training and specialists in the hope of gaining oil concessions.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, that country's dictator, describes China as its main development partner. |
