China, Africa & Oil
China has turned to Africa, an oil-producing source whose risks and challenges have often caused it to be overlooked economically.
The country is doing everything possible to lure Africa's major oil producing countries in a bid to guarantee supplies for decades to come.
The Nations Newspaper in Nigeria has reported that the Chinese Government has offered $30 billion to Nigeria in a bid to buy six billion barrels of oil from its reserves.
It is also negotiating for stakes in oil fields in Ghana and Angola, including companies that exploit the fields throughout Africa.
China's thirst for oil was a major topic at the forum on China-Africa Cooperation when the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met African leaders and ministers in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last month.
“The Chinese have made a proposal which we are considering,” Deputy Oil minister, Odein Ajumogobia recently told AFP.
“They are asking for six billion barrels of oil from our reserves, but I can tell you that we are not going to give them all of that,” he added.
In Ghana, China's state-run National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is discussing with the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to purchase 23.5 percent of Kosmos Energy's stake in the Jubilee oil field, one of the largest oil discoveries in West Africa in the past decade.
In addition to the aforementioned, a Chinese firm, SINOPEC, recently bought a Canadian oil firm Addax, which operates in Nigeria and West Africa, for a mere 5 billion Euros.
CNOOC and Sinopec said in July that they had agreed to buy a 20-percent stake in an offshore oil block in Angola from US oil company, Marathon Oil Corporation.
The strength of the Chinese is that they are ready to put lot of cash on the table.
While the country's interests in Africa have surged, Western countries still make the vast majority of investments in Africa and remain highly influential.
Though the Asian country relies on coal for most of its energy needs, it is the second-largest consumer of oil in the world behind the United States.
Once the largest oil exporter in Asia, China became a net importer of oil in 1993.
China's booming economy, which has averaged about 10 percent in the last two decades, requires massive levels of energy to sustain its growth.
The International Energy Agency has projected that China's net oil imports will increase from 3.5 million barrels per day in 2006 to 13.1 million barrels per day by 2030.
The country currently imports about half its oil supplies from the Middle East and that percentage is projected to grow in the coming decades.
Yet the extent of China's energy demand has also compelled it to push into new markets, particularly Africa.
Africa holds a fraction of the world's proven oil reserves, approximately nine percent compared to the Middle East, which has nearly 62 percent.
But industry analysts believe it could hold significant undiscovered reserves. Consequently, China is seeking to increase its oil imports from the continent.
It now receives about one-third of its oil imports from Africa, representing about nine percent of the continent's total exports in 2006, compared to the 33 percent purchased by the United States in the same period.
Presently, China's biggest suppliers in Africa are Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sudan.
It has also secured supplies from Chad, Nigeria, Algeria and Gabon.
According to the World Bank, 85 percent of Africa's exports to China come from five oil-rich countries, including Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.
Though our continent contains only 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, oil companies are eyeing our crude for reasons beyond sheer output.
The region's oil is light and sweet, making it easier and cheaper to refine than the Middle Eastern oil. Moreover, most of it is located offshore, which means decreased transport costs and reduced risk of political violence.
One thing we need to know is that Chinese are not here for our oil alone but have also continued to cast their sights on farmlands, especially the best ones on the African continent.
These arable lands constitute the livelihood of local people who are likely to lose access, but African governments pay little attention to them.
A report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) confirmed that in five years, the Chinese investors had quickly bought millions of hectares of land in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Madagascar and Sudan.
China owns vast tracts of overseas land, mainly in Algeria and Zimbabwe and analysts have suggested that more than a million ethnic Chinese farm workers will be living on the continent this year.
This piece is supported by Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA)
By Felix Dela Klutse