Communist China stakes claim to S. Texas oil and gas

SOURCE
State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.
With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent...

...Energy consumption in the world’s most populous nation has doubled in less than a decade, and the International Energy Agency reported in July that China surpassed the U.S. in total energy used in 2009.

China has increasingly been looking to the Americas for raw materials it needs to sustain the boom. As private investment dwindled with the global financial crisis, the cash-flush Chinese went on a regional shopping spree.

“It’s really kind of exploded. All of a sudden, you’ve started to see a lot of large-scale purchases,” said Evan Ellis, an expert on China’s involvement in the region who teaches at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington. “Basically Latin America is becoming a Pacific-oriented region.”

China has poured some $20 billion in loans and direct investments into Brazil’s offshore oil exploration and production, for example. And last spring, the Chinese government loaned $20 billion to Venezuela to develop oil fields in its Orinoco River basin, with much of the work awarded to Chinese companies.

Hat tip - Newshound  Photo Credits - cjc4454 & Philip Jägenstedt