OPEC, Russia seeks to boost China share (Bloomberg.com) Updated: 2005-12-21 20:13
OPEC countries, which produce 40 percent of the world's oil, are stepping up
efforts to secure their market share in China as the group competes with Russia
to supply the world's fastest-growing energy market.
Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah, president of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, will lead the group's first talks with China tomorrow as
members including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait plan investments in Chinese refinery
projects worth more than $8 billion to increase their share of China's fuel
market.
Oil prices have tripled since 2001 as the Chinese economy expanded at more
than 9 percent a year, straining global supply. Russia, China's largest non-OPEC
supplier, may build a pipeline to feed Siberian oil to China and will raise rail
shipments 50 percent next year. Saudi Arabia has used oil refinery investments
to ensure sales in Japan and South Korea.
"The relationship between China and OPEC is still weak," said A.F. Alhajji,
oil economist and associate professor at Ohio Northern University. "OPEC members
should invest more in China and circulate some of the petrodollars that they
earned in recent years."
China, the world's second-largest energy market, imported about 800,000
barrels a day from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Indonesia, its largest OPEC suppliers,
according to Beijing- based Customs General Administration. Russia, Angola, Oman
and Sudan are the biggest non-OPEC exporters to the country. China will need to
import more than 3 million barrels a day next year.
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