Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Prospero anno, Cina !

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL24Ag07.html
THE ROVING EYE
China plays Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar
BEIJING - For all the rhapsodies on the advent of the New Silk Road, it may 
have come into effect for good last week, when China and Central Asia got 
together to open a crucial Pipelineistan node linking Turkmenistan to 
China's Xinjiang.
By 2013, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong will be cruising to ever more 
dizzying heights courtesy of gas supplied by the 1,833-kilometer Central 
Asia Pipeline from Turkmenistan - operating at full capacity. The pipeline 
will even help China achieve its goals in terms of curbing carbon emissions.
And in a few years China's big cities will also be cruising courtesy of oil 
from Iraq. (See Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot Asia Times Online, 
December 16.)
China needs Iraqi oil. But instead of spending more than US$2 trillion on an 
illegal war, Chinese companies got some of the oil they needed from Iraq by 
bidding in a legal Iraqi oil auction. And in the New Great Game in Eurasia, 
instead of getting bogged down in Afghanistan, they made a direct deal with 
Turkmenistan, built a pipeline, profited from Turkmenistan's disagreements 
with Moscow (Gazprom stopped buying Turkmen gas last April, which cost the 
Central Asian "stan" $1 billion a month), and will get most of the gas they 
need.
The running myth is that China is addicted to oil. Coal would be more like 
it. The No 1 global emitter of greenhouse gases, China still produces more 
than 70% of its energy from coal. Beijing will inevitably get deeper into 
biogas or solar energy, but in the short term most of the "factory of the 
world" runs on coal. Of its verified energy reserves, 96% are coal.
This does not imply that China's shortage of raw materials such as oil and 
iron ore does not have the possibility of materializing Beijing's planners' 
worst nightmare - making the country a hostage to foreign raw-material 
producers (iron ore plays a significant part in China's strategic 
relationship with Brazil). But diversifying oil supplies is a matter of 
extreme national security. When oil reached $150 a barrel in 2008 - before 
the US-unleashed financial crisis - China's media accused foreign Big Oil of 
being "international petroleum crocodiles", and insinuated that the West's 
hidden agenda was ultimately to stop China's relentless development dead in 
its tracks.
Have sanctions won't travel
Twenty-eight percent of the world's total proven oil reserves are in the 
Arab world. China badly needs this oil - with its factories churning out 
everything from sneakers to laptops, its car market booming like there's no 
tomorrow (last month alone it produced 1.34 million vehicles), and Beijing 
constantly increasing its strategic oil reserves.
Few may know that China is actually the world's fifth-largest oil producer, 
at 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd), just below Iran and slightly over 
Mexico. In 1980, China consumed only 3% of the world's oil. Now it's already 
around 10% - the world's second-largest consumer, overtaking Japan but still 
way behind the US at 27%.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China will account for 
more than 40% of the increase in global oil demand up to 2030. And this 
assumes that China's gross domestic product will grow at "only" 6%. In 2009, 
even with the global financial crisis, China's GDP is expected to have grown 
8%.
Saudi Arabia controls 13% of the world's oil production. It is the only 
swing producer capable of substantially increasing output. Not by accident, 
until recently it was China's main supplier - with 500,000 bpd.
China will get increasingly more oil from Iraq starting from 2013 or 2014. 
So from now on China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) will be very well 
positioned. But it's the Iranian equation that's really complex.
Chinese companies committed to investing no less than a staggering $120 
billion in Iran's energy sector over the past five years. Iran is already 
China's No 2 oil supplier. Sinopec has just signed another memorandum of 
understanding with the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co to 
invest an additional $6.5 billion to build oil refineries in Iran. Despite 
sanctions, trade between China and Iran grew 35% in 2009, to $27 billion.
Saudi Arabia - harboring extreme paranoia about the Iranian nuclear 
program - has offered to supply the Chinese the same amount of oil it 
currently imports from Iran, at much lower prices. Beijing scotched the 
deal. Then US President Barack Obama warned President Hu Jintao during his 
November visit to Beijing that the US would not be able to keep Israel from 
attacking Iran - as a tactic to persuade Beijing to agree to harsher 
sanctions.
Arguably nothing will happen in January, when China takes over the 
presidency of the United Nations Security Council. No matter what's spun in 
the US, Russia as well as China won't agree to more sanctions against Iran. 
But France takes over in February, and will definitely press the council to 
be harsher.
So many escape routes
From Beijing's point of view, both the US vs Iran conflict and the simmering 
US vs China strategic competition boil down to what could be called "escape 
from Hormuz and Malacca".
The Strait of Hormuz - the only entry to the Persian Gulf - at its narrowest 
is only 36km wide, with Iran to the north and Oman to the south. Roughly 20% 
of China's oil imports travel through it. Beijing frets at the sight of US 
aircraft carriers patrolling nearby.
The Strait of Malacca - very busy and very dangerous - at its narrowest is 
only 2.8km wide, with Singapore to the north and Indonesia to the south. As 
much as 80% of China's oil imports may travel through it.
The "escape" logic explains China's foray into Africa. China went to Africa 
because that continent is home to the few oilfields not owned by foreign Big 
Oil. When Chinese state oil companies buy equity stakes in African 
oilfields, they are protecting China from increases in oil prices, with the 
added bonus of no hassle - as happened in 2005 when China National Offshore 
Oil Corp (CNOOC) tried to buy Unocal in the US.
Hu Jintao goes to Africa every single year. Angola even overtook Saudi 
Arabia as China's main oil supplier in 2006. CNPC is extremely active in 
Sudan, owning equity in a number of oilfields. There are no fewer than 
10,000 Chinese workers in Sudan building refineries and pipelines to the Red 
Sea. Beijing showers Khartoum with loans to build infrastructure. Sudan 
already is China's sixth oil supplier, responsible for about 6% of oil 
imports.
There are problems, of course. China's refineries deal mainly with 
low-sulfur sweet crude (predominant in African oilfields) rather than 
high-sulfur sour crude (predominant in Saudi Arabia). So more Chinese demand 
at first glance would mean the necessity to import more African oil. But 
that will change in time. China is building new refineries to process sour 
crude, some even financed by Saudi Arabia.
The road goes on forever
China's Central Asia strategy could be summed up as bye-bye Hormuz, bye-bye 
Malacca, and welcome to the New Silk Road.
Kazakhstan has 3% of the world's proven oil reserves. Its largest oilfields 
are not far from the Chinese border. China sees Kazakhstan as a key 
alternative oil supplier - with Pipelineistan linking Kazakh oilfields to 
Chinese refineries.
CNPC financed the Kazakh-China pipeline in 2005 (with a capacity of 400,000 
bpd) and bought two-thirds of formerly Canadian PetroKazakhstan, which 
controls the Kumkol fields in the Turgai basin (the other third is owned by 
the Kazakh government) for $4.18 billion. And China Investment Corp, a 
sovereign wealth fund, bought 11% of KazMunaiGas Exploration Production 
(KMG), the oil-production subsidiary of the national energy company, for $1 
billion.
China's first transnational Pipelineistan adventure was the China-Kazakhstan 
oil link. But this does not detract at all from China-Russia Pipelineistan - 
in both oil and gas. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently sealed 
more than $5 billion in deals with China, mostly on energy, advancing the 
agreement on a gas pipeline that will deliver up to 70 billion cubic meters 
of gas a year from Russia to China, according to Gazprom's Aleksey Miller.
But the Russia vs China chapter of Pipelineistan may be very tricky. Russia 
can at times behave as a strategic competitor. For example, the 
Kazakhstan-China pipeline operates with no hassle only for seven months a 
year. In winter the crude oil must be mixed with less viscous oils so it 
won't freeze. Russia supplies them. But Transneft delayed delivery of these 
additives in the winter of 2006, arguing that its own pipeline was already 
operating at the limit. CNPC was forced to transport the additives by rail 
from another part of Kazakhstan for a lot of money.
Central Asia - via Turkmenistan - will definitely be China's major supplier 
of gas, but on the oil front, it's much more complex. Even if all the 
"stans" sold China every barrel of oil they currently pump, the total would 
be less than half of China's daily needs.
This means that ultimately only the Middle East can placate China's thirst 
for oil. According to the International Energy Agency, China's oil demand 
will rise to 11.3 million barrels a day by 2015, even with its domestic 
production peaking. Compare that with what some of China's alternative 
suppliers are producing: Angola at 1.4 million bpd, Kazakhstan at 1.4 
million as well, and Sudan at 400,000.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia produces 10.9 million bpd, the United Arab 
Emirates 3.0 million, Kuwait 2.7 million - and then there's Iraq, bound to 
reach 4 million by 2015. But Beijing is still not convinced - not with all 
those US "forward operating sites" in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and 
Oman, plus a naval battle group in the Persian Gulf.
China may also count on a South Asia option. China spent $200 million on the 
first phase of construction of the deepwater port of Gwadar in Balochistan. 
It wanted - and it got from Islamabad - "sovereign guarantees to the port's 
facilities". Gwadar is only 400km from Hormuz. From Gwadar, China can easily 
monitor traffic in the strait.
But Gwadar is infinitely more crucial as the pivot of the virtual 
Pipelineistan war between TAPI and IPI. TAPI is the 
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which will never be built 
as long as a US/NATO foreign occupation is fighting the Taliban in 
Afghanistan. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the 
"peace pipeline" (TAPI would be the "war pipeline" then?). Iran and Pakistan 
have already agreed to build it, much to Washington's distress.
In this case, Gwadar will be a key node. And if India pulls out, China 
already has made it clear it wants in; China would build another 
Pipelineistan node from Gwadar across the Karakoram highway toward Xinjiang. 
That would be a classic case of close energy cooperation among Iran, 
Pakistan and China - and a major strategic Pentagon defeat in the New Great 
Game in Eurasia.
An additional complicating factor is that India harbors infinite suspicion 
about a Chinese "string of pearls" - ports along China's key oil-supply 
routes, from Pakistan to Myanmar. Washington still believes that if TAPI is 
built, India will refrain from breaking the US-enforced embargo on Iran. But 
for India it would be a much safer - and strategically sounder - deal to 
align with IPI than with TAPI.
A Maoist drenched in oil
For China there's also an "escape to South America" option. In the 
Venezuelan overall strategy it's essential to sell more oil to China so as 
to lower its heavy dependence on the US market. According to the existing 
terms of the China-Venezuela partnership, four tankers and at least two 
refineries will be built - one in the immensely oil-rich Orinoco Belt in 
Venezuela and the other in Guangdong. State-owned Petroleos de Venezuela 
(PDVSA) will be responsible for shipping the oil to China.
The Venezuelan target is to export 500,000bpd in 2009 - already reached - 
and 1 million by 2012. President Hugo Chavez - who in typical colorful 
manner described himself as a "Maoist" during his last visit to China - 
wants Venezuela to be no less than China's top oil supplier. China's energy 
analysts take this partnership extremely seriously; it means that Venezuela 
could replace Angola. Currently, according to China's Ministry of Commerce, 
Angola, Saudi Arabia and Iran are its top three oil suppliers.
Meanwhile, China has retrofitted many of its coal-fired plants in the past 
few years, and is accelerating moves to bypass high-intensity 
carbon-emitting technology, rebuilding its steel and cement industries. The 
country spends $9 billion a month on clean energy. There are plenty of wind 
farms across the countryside. A Shenzhen company is the world leader in 
lithium-ion battery technology. The first affordable, global electric car is 
bound to be made in China.
According to the China Greentech Initiative, the potential green market in 
China could reach a staggering $1 trillion a year by 2013 - that is, 15% of 
China's gross domestic product by then.
But for the moment, Beijing's strategic priority has been to develop an 
extremely meticulous energy-supply policy - with sources in Russia, the 
South China Sea, Central Asia, the East China Sea, the Middle East, Africa 
and South America.
As masterly as China may be able to play Pipelineistan, it will stride ever 
more confidently into a green future.

 By Pepe Escobar
molto interessante. Soprattutto per le connessioni con l'Iran e pi� in 
generale le nuove strategie della Cina per accaparrarsi il petrolio 
dell'Asia Centrale. Nonch� per la 'scappatoia 'venezuelana'. Sembrerebbe che 
la Cina stia cercando di evitare gli 'stretti'...una buona notizia direi... 
:-)