CHINA BUYS OIL RIGHTS IN TEXAS
10-18-2010 6:13 pm - Dr Jerome Corsi - RedAlert.wnd.com
China's foreign-exchange reserves have increased to a record $2.648 trillion at a time when China is going on an international buying spree, grabbing up energy rights even within the continental U.S.
As I warned in writing "America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty," China will not forever be content to lend the USA money.
Sooner rather than later, China will demand assets, including energy rights.
With $2.648 in foreign-exchange reserves, China has the dollars needed to buy U.S. assets in record amounts.
China's foreign-exchange reserves top $2.5 trillion
Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal announced China's "reserves, already by far the largest such stash in the world, jumped by $194 billion in the third quarter, central-bank data issued Wednesday show, making their biggest-ever quarter gain."
The Wall Street Journal attributed China's historic rise in foreign-exchange reserves to a wider trade surplus with the U.S. and the low dollar.
Tensions with the Obama administration continue over China's refusal to allow the yuan to freely float on currency-exchange markets.
The yuan has risen only about 2.3 percent against the dollar since June and many U.S. politicians still view China's currency as being kept intentionally undervalued, as part of China's policy to boost exports.
China has repeatedly insisted its central bank will make only "gradual changes" in the exchange rate, as the Wall Street Journal noted.
CHINA LEASES OIL RIGHTS IN TEXAS
China announced last week that the state-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multi-million dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields.
In her report on the story, Monica Hatcher of the Houston Chronicle suggested China was "testing the political waters for further energy expansion into U.S. energy reserves."
That China is buying U.S. oil and natural gas rights in the continental United States will strike millions of Americans as paradoxical, especially since the U.S. continues to be a net importer of approximately 60 percent of the oil consumed in the United States.
The Houston Chronicle reported China paid $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, with CNOCC laying a claim to a share of the energy resources in South Texas that have the potential to produce up to half a million barrels of oil per day.
The Houston Chronicle reported that as part of this deal, CNOCC agreed to pay approximately $1.1 billion for a share of Chesapeake's assets in the Eagle Ford, described as a broad oil and gas formation that runs from the southwest of San Antonio to the Mexican border.
Five years ago, China was blocked from a $18.4 billion deal in which China planned to purchase California-based Unocal Corp.
Today, China has the cash and U.S. corporations need the business.
The Houston Chronicle also reported that the deal with China could create as many as 20,000 jobs in the United States, as well as provide the capital Chesapeake needs to increase its rig count in South Texas from 10 rigs to 42 rigs by the end of 2012.
The newspaper noted that China has provided $20 billion in loans and direct investments into Brazil's offshore oil explorations and $20 billion to Venezuela to develop oil fields in the Orinoco River basis, with much of the work awarded to Chinese companies.
CHINA DUMPS DOLLARS
Meanwhile, China has been quietly moving out of the dollar, concerned that U.S. debt will end up debasing the dollar.
China cut its holdings of long-term Treasuries by $21.2 billion in June, reducing total Chinese holdings of Treasury debt to $839.7 billion, according to Bloomberg.
China has been diversifying its foreign-exchange reserves away from the dollar, in favor of the euro and gold, since June 2009, when China's holdings of U.S. Treasury debt peaked at around $950 trillion.
"Asian central banks holding some 60 percent of the world's foreign-exchange reserves are turning away from the dollar," Bloomberg noted. "Concerned about weakening U.S. growth and the Treasury's record borrowing, they are switching toward euro assets to safeguard reserves, driving gains in the 16-nation currency."
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