News, analysis and personal reflections on the markets & the financial sector

Saturday, December 19, 2009

China has invested $78 billion to secure oil reserves around the world in 2009:
  • China's state-run oil company China National Offshore Oil Corp. or CNOOC (NYSE:CEO) is buying five leases from Norway's StatoilHydro for exploration rights in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Imagine seeing Chinese oil rigs off the coast of America in Gulf of Mexico!
  • CNOOC confirmed it was bidding for Kosmos Energy's stakes in the Jubilee oilfield offshore Ghana, which could be worth between $3 billion to $5 billion.
  • CNOOC and Sinopec Group, parent of Sinopec Corp (NYSE:SNP), agreed to purchase a stake in an oil block offshore Angola from Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO - news) for $1.3 billion.
  • China Development Bank lent $10 billion to Brazil's Petrobras in exchange for an agreement to supply oil to Sinopec...for the next 10 years!

  • Sinopec Group bought Swiss oil explorer Addax Petroleum Corp for $7.24 billion, gaining access to high-potential oil blocks in West Africa and Iraq.

  • The Chinese sovereign wealth fund recently purchased an 11% stake in KazMunaiGas, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan's national oil and gas company, in a deal totaling $939 million.

  • PetroChina (NYSE:PTR) recently made a landmark purchase in Canada's oil sands, by paying $1.7 Billion for a 60% working interest in Athabasca Oil Sands Corporation's MacKay River and Dover in-situ oil sands projects.

  • China injected $4 Billion into a Venezuelan joint venture, in return for a commitment from PDVSA, Venezuela's state-run oil company, to sell China's largest oil company, CNPC, between 80,000 – 200,000 barrels per day by 2015.

  • In Iran, CNPC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to develop the South Azadegan oilfield, wherein CNPC will take a 70% interest in the project.
  • Even in war-torn Iraq, CNPC and BP won a license to develop the Rumaila super-giant oil filed, which some analysts say could be the second largest producing oilfield in the world, after the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia.

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