Oil: China and Sudan

choi

Andrew Higgins, Oil Interests Push China Into Sudanese Mire. Washington Post, Dec 25, 2011 (Power Grab: China’s quest for energy)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wo ... QANkzGGP_story.html

Quote:

"The Chinese 'are very worried,' said Stephen Dhieu Dau, South Sudan’s minister of petroleum and mining, who attended the lunch with Liu. 'Their wish is to see the continuation of production and the flow of the crude. This is their concern.'

"Most of the oil lies in the landlocked south, but the only way to get it to market is through Chinese-built pipelines that pass through the north to a Chinese-built terminal on the Red Sea.

"The country’s [China's] largest African supplier by far was Angola, but most of that oil was simply purchased, not produced, by Chinese companies. In the Sudan region, by contrast, CNPC — the dominant partner in foreign consortiums operating there — actually pumped the oil from the ground. Chinese customs figures show that China imported 92 million barrels of crude from Sudan last year — or 70 percent of Sudan’s total oil exports as reported by the then united country’s Central Bank.

"The deals [the old, Khartoum-drafted contracts] South Sudan wants reworked date to when CNPC first plunged into Sudan, taking over fields originally developed by the US company Chevron, which, alarmed by mounting violence, had pulled out. * * * As Western companies retreated, CNPC advanced, boosting production and investing in a pipeline to the Red Sea that, in 1999, allowed the first oil exports from Sudan.

South Sudan "has tried to woo Chevron, Halliburton and other U.S. oil companies but found no takers, leaving China as its only real economic partner. 'Reality makes us work with people who are not our friends,' said Lual Deng, a southerner who served in Khartoum as petroleum minister before the country split. 'We would prefer Western companies, but they are not coming.'

Note: ruction (n; perhaps by shortening & alteration from insurrection; First Known Use: circa 1825):
"1: a noisy fight
2: DISTURBANCE, UPROAR"
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