Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (1879)	12/10/2003 2:06:53 PM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 6370

FEATURE-China's Tarim Basin: gushing with oil or just hype? Reuters, 12.09.03, 8:30 PM ET ... PetroChina Ltd <0857.HK> (nyse: PTR - news - people), the country's flagship oil concern, reckons it holds more than 10 billion tonnes of oil and 8.0 trillion cubic metres of natural gas -- the world's fourth and third largest caches, respectively. And its showpiece is a 4,200-km (2,610-mile) West-to-East gas pipeline, an $8-billion trunk that will propel nationwide gas usage. "The Tarim Basin is very important for the development of China. Despite adverse natural conditions, our crude oil production this year will hit 5.25 million tonnes," said Sun Longde, president of PetroChina's Tarim Oilfield Company. ... Yet many are willing to brave it. China pumped 20.3 million tonnes of crude oil from Xinjiang in 2002, accounting for 12.15 percent of the country's total output in the year. The basin's oil -- lifeblood of an economy that grew 9.1 percent in the year to the third quarter -- is envisioned as powering western cities such as Urumqi, while natural gas would feed the energy-hungry eastern economic powerhouses for decades. And then there's the pipeline. Analysts say the gas will aid China in reducing dependence on a volatile Middle East for a third of its oil, while using less polluting coal. It might also enrich an impoverished West, holding ethnic tensions in check. Natural gas now makes up 2.2 percent of energy consumption in China, versus an average of 24 percent elsewhere. "In the scale of China's energy use, the pipeline is an important project, but it's not the country's great, big energy hope. Natural gas will remain far less than that of coal or oil," said Norman Valentine, analyst at Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie. China wants gas to account for six percent of energy consumption by 2010. PetroChina has a goal of 12 percent by 2020. But the project has had its share of bumps. A final agreement between partners PetroChina and a foreign group led by giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group <RD.AS><SHEL.L> has yet to be signed, while potential customers complain the gas is too expensive. Local executives remain confident the basin speaks for itself, hoping it will comprise a quarter of gas output some day. "The pipeline is only the start. By 2007, we want greater development of our fields, by 2010, we want to find more reserves, and by 2020, we'd replace fields," an upbeat Sun said. (1 tonnne = 7.3 barrels) Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service forbes.com