Why "Chinese oil giant Sinopec has stopped exporting oil products to maintain domestic supplies amid disruption concerns caused by Middle East unrest and Japan's earthquake, a report said Wednesday.
China has two objectives. First:
Guarantee oil supply without being hired gun. “The United States spends around $40 billion to $50 billion per year to protect the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to the global economy, more than the entire defense budgets of all but a few countries. China, by comparison, spends virtually nothing on Gulf security, while pursuing its strategy of building political and economic relations with oil-rich countries in order to secure oil for its growing economy. This is nowhere more apparent than in China's relations with Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil power.
Beijing's focus on the Persian Gulf began in earnest in 1978, when it implemented the "Reform and Opening Up" policy, aimed at modernizing the Chinese economy. The policy's objectives made secure access to Middle East oil and good relations with oil-rich countries critical. Saudi Arabia figured prominently into China's plans, and over time, bilateral relations gradually improved. As multiyear data gathered from the Chinese Customs Statistical Yearbook shows, Sino-Saudi trade grew 6,000-fold from 1978-2003.”
For that to happen China needs to tightly couple its oil business with the exporting country.
See Saudi Arabia business couplings.. In March it agreed to work with state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Saudi Aramco, in building a 400,000-barrel-a-day refinery on the Red Sea coast.
online.wsj.com
Riyadh's ties to China are expanding beyond the oil trade and deepening in the area of refining operations. Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, is partnering with the China National Petroleum Corporation to build a new refinery in China's Yunnan. |
