Hu Adds Heft To China-Central Asia Pipeline Opening

We’ve noted before China’s expanding reach into energy-rich Central Asia. A sign of how strategically important that is to Beijing is President Hu Jintao’s presence (again) in the Kazakhstan capital Astanta on Saturday to open the Kazakh leg of the new 1,800 kilometer pipeline connecting China and Turkmenistan.
Hu will be going onto Ashgabat, the capital [...]

Natural Gas In Chongqing, Or Hot Air?

Given China’s rush to secure energy resources overseas there would be a certain irony to finding a massive natural gas field in its own back yard. Yet that is what may — or may not — have happened.  Chengdu Commercial News quotes a local official saying a Sinopec official had told him that the company [...]

CNOOC Ventures In Nigeria

Unlike in other parts of Africa, China’s economic push into Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s leading crude producer, hasn’t made much headway.
In 2006, Chinese companies won four oil-drilling licenses in an oil-for-infrastructure deal that would have had Beijing building a hydroelectric power plant, a railway and a refinery in Nigeria. But the plug was pulled on that [...]

China’s Cloudy Investment In Chavez’s Grandiose Vision

Details of the newly struck oil deal with Venezuela remain murky. We don’t know much beyond the fact that there will be $16 billion of Chinese investment over three years to boost production from the Orinoco River basin by 450,000 barrels a day, probably from developing a new field as was the case with a [...]

New Fuel Tax Introduced With Offsetting Price Cuts

The long-anticipated fuel tax rise has come into effect, with, as expected, an offsetting cut in gasoline pump prices.
The National Development and Reform Commission has announced that fuel consumption tax will increase from 0.2 yuan a liter to 1 yuan a liter on gasoline and from 0.1 yuan  a liter to 0.8 yuan a liter [...]

China’s Gas Tax Expected ‘Within 20 Days’

Fuel taxes are to be imposed within 20 days, according to China Daily, quoting reliable sources in the latest in a series of leaks prepping their introduction. This will reverse the subsidies now given to refined petroleum products. The aim is to make China a more efficient consumer of energy. The 60% fall in global [...]

China’s New Energy Law Held Back By Red Tape

China’s new energy law is tied up in the red tape of bureaucratic reorganization. The draft law, intended to move the country’s energy policy towards market pricing and promote renewable sources of energy, has yet to be submitted to the State Council for approval, according to a Platt’s report quoting unnamed sources at an oil [...]

Russia’s Medvedev Heads To Beijing, By Way Of Astana

Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, arrives Friday. Notable as it is that he is making China the destination for his first official trip abroad, the route he is taking is even more so.
He will arrive via Kazakhstan, the energy rich former Soviet republic that is both playing an increasingly pivotal role in Central Asia and [...]