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U.S. Worried About China’s Involvement in Americas?
Winnie Zhu and David Stanway, Interfax-China via Resource Investor
SHANGHAI (Interfax-China) — China’s interest in exploring oil and gas on Cuba’s northwestern coast close to the Florida Keys has further raised the concerns of the United States about the threat that China poses to U.S. energy security, according to Interfax.
China has been trying to boost its presence in the U.S. “backyard”, sealing deals with the left-wing governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, and buying up oil concessions in Ecuador. It has also sought closer cooperation with Brazil in the field of oil exploration.
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The U.S., for its part, has expressed its opposition to China’s global energy strategy, claiming that China is not playing by the rules of the international oil market and is seeking instead to “secure oil at the source.”
While the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela has been openly seeking alternative export markets in the face of U.S. opposition, Beijing has sought to take advantage. Meanwhile, China’s growing interest in Cuba has been aided by the decades-long hostility towards the Castro regime in Washington.
(12 May 2006)
Japanese consumers feeling high cost of crude oil
Takayuki Nishizawa, Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)
…The national average price of regular gasoline rose by 11.1 yen per liter in the past year. To save money, some customers buy gasoline 10 liters at a time or choose not to have their vehicles washed at gas stations.
The rise in the price of crude oil also has led to higher jet fuel costs for the airline industry. In March, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways applied for a special fuel surcharge for international flight rates. Currently the companies charge an additional 2,700 yen for a Narita-Beijing flight, but the newest surcharge would add 400 yen to the surcharge for tickets issued from June 1.
One out of four truck companies has included the rise in diesel costs in its fees, despite having been pressured by clients to lower rates. According to a survey by the Japan Trucking Association in February and March, more companies raised their rates in April. It also said some companies have become reluctant to accept long-distance contracts due to low profitability.
(11 May 2006)
Cheney has Turkey in his sights
David Gow, Guardian
Dick Cheney, the US vice-president who famously peppered a 78-year-old lawyer in a quail hunting accident, shot wildly again last week.
This time, as well as hitting a supposed friend, Russia, he shot himself in the foot as he denounced Russia’s geo-political use of its oil and gas reserves as “tools of intimidation and blackmail”.
He highlighted, in doing so, a relatively unheralded goal of US foreign policy: to turn Turkey into a conduit for energy supplies that bypass the control of President Putin and the majority state-owned Russian gas giant Gazprom.
It is a role Turkey, already a Nato member, is embracing, albeit with considerable anxiety and hesitation. It dovetails with Turkey’s ambition to become the first predominantly Islamic country to be a full EU member. The Europeans, frightened off by Russia’s abrupt closure of gas supplies to Ukraine earlier this year, are seeking to reduce their dependence on Gazprom, which already supplies a quarter of the EU’s natural gas.
This is one of two overriding reasons why Turks see their country as an indispensable asset for Europe, its potential as a transit country for energy supplies between central Asia, a growing rival to Russia, and the EU. The other is its young population, which can help to provide solutions to Europe’s ageing crisis.
(11 May 2006)
Arab state pours oil profits into science
Jim Giles, Nature
How would you spend the profits from an oil well? That question was on the mind of about 200 Arab scientists who gathered in Doha, Qatar, late last month.
The country’s head of state, Emir Hammad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, has devoted a chunk of Qatar’s fossil-fuel profits to research, and the region’s expatriate scientists were brought together to advise how best to invest it. Get it right, said attendees, and the money could help create an internationally respected science base for the Arab world.
“If it succeeds, it will change the whole region,” says Hilal Lashuel, a Yemeni neuro-scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Lausanne. “Arabs will compete for the first time.”
Qatar is already gaining scientists’ attention in part because the country has recently transformed its university system. The tiny Gulf state, which has a population of less than 900,000, supports Western standards of living thanks to its substantial oil and gas fields. But those reserves are limited.
Hence Qatar’s decision to jump on the knowledge-economy bandwagon and create Education City. The 2,500-acre campus on the outskirts of Doha hosts undergraduate teaching branches of several well-known US universities, such as Texas A&M. By replicating Western academic culture in the Gulf, the country’s leaders hope to eventually attract 2,000 students annually to what could become the region’s premier teaching facility. Several hundred students are already enrolled.
(11 May 2006)
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Fuel shortage paralyses Gaza
Stephen Farrell, UK TImes
using a donkey cart fill a barrel at a petrol station in Gaza, which is fast running out of fuel. Supplies were halted because the Palestinian Authority run by Hamas has not paid $29 million owing to the Israeli fuel company Dor Alon.
The fuel shortage paralysed transport and threatened the power supply to hospitals, businesses and homes. The crisis was temporarily eased yesterday when Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, reportedly agreed to dip into the PA’s investment funds to guarantee payment. Earlier, officials at Gaza’s only power station gave warning that it would have to be turned off at 11am on Sunday unless fuel supplies resumed.
Mr Abbas’s decision to settle some of the fuel bill within ten days comes soon after the Quartet of international mediators – the US, Russia, the EU and the UN – announced a fund to channel humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank, bypassing the Government. Israel has meanwhile agreed to release millions of dollars in tax revenue it had withheld from the Palestinian Government.
(12 May 2006)
