Monday, March 24, 2014

Life after CNOOC’s Nexen deal: Is China’s honeymoon with Canada’s oil patch over?

From:   Financial Post


After spending roughly $30-billion on Canadian oil and natural gas assets over the last six years, making it the largest foreign investor in Canadian energy, China is grappling with issues that have long plagued its North American rivals, including high costs, operational challenges, aboriginal issues and volatile bitumen prices.
After spending roughly $30-billion on Canadian oil and natural gas assets over the last six years, making it the largest foreign investor in Canadian energy, China is grappling with issues that have long plagued its North American rivals, including high costs, operational challenges, aboriginal issues and volatile bitumen prices
Handout/Nexen 
At a recent conference at Beijing’s Four Seasons Hotel, one of many featuring trade missions from Canada promoting energy-related investment, Feng Zhiqiang wondered aloud about the next blockbuster Chinese energy deal in Alberta’s oil patch.
“If Sinopec decides to do its own Nexen, what would Canada do?” the chief executive and chairman of Sinopec Daylight Energy Ltd. asked.

The question was put to Canadian political and energy powerbrokers, including Joe Oliver, Canada’s natural resources minister, Rich Coleman, B.C.’s natural gas minister, Alberta energy minister Ken Hughes and David Collyer, the head of the Calgary-based oil industry association.

“The room virtually went silent,” recalled Wenran Jiang, director of the Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum and an advisor to the Alberta government on China, who organized the event that day. “Nobody was able to answer that question.”  MORE

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