China moves into Afghanistan
Chinese Communist state owned enterprises have already bagged three multi-billion-dollar investment projects
- Huge Chinese oil drilling and iron mining projects.
- The U.S. is footing the bill for "security" while the Chinese rake in the cash.
China is drilling for oil and mining in Afghanistan. The security is provided by the American taxpayers. There is only one possible conclusion: our government is run by fucking morons.
China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country’s vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.
Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia’s giant as a potentially stabilizing force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan — having shed no blood and not much aid.
Many countries have contributed to Afghanistan’s reconstruction. But it’s only been since 2007 that China has attracted attention with its investments. In November 2007, the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) won the tender to invest over $2.9 billion to develop the Aynak copper mine, which is the second-largest copper deposit in the world reports Foreign Police in Focus.
This was not only the second-largest investment in Afghanistan in recent years – equivalent to one-third of all foreign aid spent in the country between 2002 and 2007 – but it also raised China to the top tier of investors. In a more recent deal in October 2011, the PetroChina Company Ltd (CPNC) plans to invest about $300 million in three oil fields in northern Afghanistan.
Besides its unique strategic position, Afghanistan's less known feature, its abundant mineral resources, is very attractive to resource-hungry China. China has become the second-largest net oil importer in the world since 2009.
According to an International Energy Agency scenario, Chinese oil imports are estimated to grow from 4.3 million barrels a day in 2009 to 12.8 million barrels a day in 2035, rising from 53 percent to 84 percent of its total demand. It is also dependent on foreign imports of copper and iron for 80 percent and 53.6 percent of its needs respectively, and its consumption will grow by 5-10 percent per year in the future.
An Afghan man rides his bike past a China Merchandise Trade Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Musadeq Sadeq / Associated Press) |
In 1960s and 1970s, Soviet geological exploration revealed numerous mineral reserves in Afghanistan. After 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey updated these findings and estimated that the untapped mineral deposits are worth $1 trillion.
Three kinds of resources are most valuable to China. Deposits in the Aynak region contain about 240 million metric tons of copper, one of the largest copper reserves in the world.
The largest iron deposit in the country, meanwhile, is the Hajigak deposit. The region contains 1.8 billion tons of iron ore, an enormous amount of which is world-class quality. Finally, most crude oil occurs in the Afghan-Tajik Basin, and most of the natural gas is located in the Amu Darya Basin. The estimated mean volumes of petroleum were 1,596 million barrels of crude oil, 444 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and 562 million barrels of natural gas liquid. On top of these traditional resources, U.S. surveyors recently discovered a rare earth element reserve with at least 1 million metric tons of lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium in the Khanneshin area of Helmand province.
Another important energy contract, CPNC's $300-million oil exploitation project, concerns northern Afghanistan. The three oil fields in Zamarudsay, Bazarkhami, and Kashkari, which contain a total of 88 million barrels, are adjacent to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Little is known about the terms of the contract, but the investment will include a production facility and a transport network (pipeline). Considering the low population in the region, there will be less local development of infrastructure investment than in Aynak.
Chinese Communists make money and create jobs with Afghan Oil while the U.S. goes bankrupt and Americans are unemployed. |
China has invited Central Asian states to invest in road, rail and energy projects, using a $10 billion loan package that will extend Beijing's reach in the resource-rich former Soviet region.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the country's state-run banks were prepared to fund projects including a rail link from Uzbekistan through Kyrgyzstan. China, along with Russia, also planned to launch a new satellite in the region, he said.
Wen was speaking on Wednesday at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security and economic bloc linking China, Russia and four Central Asian states. China pledged the $10 billion loan package at an SCO meeting in June.
"We intend to invest this money in infrastructure, energy and production projects, in order to facilitate development of the real economy," Wen said in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. (Reuters News)
No comments:
Post a Comment