China Confidential
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
China Moving to Tap Venezuelan Heavy Oil
Foreign Confidential....
While America, even in the midst of a financial crisis that could wreck the country, persists in its irrational hatred of oil--any oil, regardless of where it comes from--China is wisely moving ahead to tap awesome oil resources in America's own backyard.
This reporter is referring to the incredibly massive heavy oil resources of Venezuela's Orinoco River Basin, which have been known for several decades. [During the energy crisis of the late 1970s and early '80s, this reporter and other observers urged the United States to forge a Western Hemisphere energy alliance with Venezuela and Canada, focused on Venezuelan heavy crude and Canadian tar sands.]
"Venezuela has enough oil to last for two hundred years," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday on the first day of his official, two-day visit to China. "And the Chinese are already working to tap that."
The anti-American despot told reporters China and Venezuela had agreed to jointly build two oil refineries, one in each country.
Heavy Oil Refinery
Chavez said the refinery to be built in Venezuela will be located in the the Orinoco Basin. A formal agreement on the issue should be signed during Chavez's stay in China.
China is already building a refinery to process imported Venezuelan oil, following an agreement reached this year. Chavez didn't provide details on when or where the second Chinese refinery would be built.
Chavez intends to strengthen relations with China through increased oil sales, partly to reduce dependency on the United States, which still buys about 60% of Venezuelan exports.
"China is showing the world that it isn't necessary to harm anyone to be a great power. They are soldiers of peace," he said, according to a Venezuelan government press release.
Asked about his absence from talks this week on the sidelines of the United Nations in New York, Chavez said: "It's much more important to be in Beijing."
Meanwhile, the BBC reported Tuesday that Russian warships are heading to Venezuela for joint exercises unprecedented since the Cold War.
The fleet of ships, headed by the nuclear-powered Peter the Great cruiser, set off from its base at Severomorsk in the Arctic.
The ships are due to take part in joint maneuvers with Venezuela in November.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
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