I heard two interesting oil stories from last week’s US visit.
First, Libya has rejected a $417 million bid by China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) for Verenex, a Canadian oil-exploration company with Libyan oil leases. Libya’s national company has since purchased Verenex at 30% less than CNPC’s offer price. I’m not sure if Libya’s response was specific to China itself, or a de-facto attempt to nationalize some of its oil assets.
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I bumped into staff from the Central Bank of Libya’s research department in Beijing last week. Apparently, 6,000 Chinese nationals have applied for visas at the Libyan embassy in the past month alone. The majority are construction workers. So, it’s not just Algeria that is seeing an influx of Chinese construction companies.
“China cheat sheet helps investors survive”, Bloomberg, September 1, 2010
“No more silver bullets for Beijing”, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010
“China’s historic return to the Gulf”, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2010
'The New Silk Road' is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is available in all good bookstores and through online retailers.
