USA vs CHINA: the new war for Iraqi oil

China continues its attempt to progressively replace the US in the exploitation of Iraqi oil and gas, following the withdrawal of the US military from the country . A major hydrocarbon deal was awarded to Chinese commercial interests in Iraq last week. This deal – an engineering, procurement and construction contract worth at least $ 412 million for a 130 million standard cubic feet (3.7 million cubic feet) per day natural gas treatment plant in Basra – has been granted. to a consortium of China CAMC Engineering Co (CAMCE) and CNOOC Petrochemical Engineering Co. (CNOOC Petrolchemical Engineering) from Kuwait Energy Basra Limited (KEBL) , with a highly misleading name. This company, in fact, does not have much to do with Kuwait, but is rather an indirect but wholly owned subsidiary of the United Energy Group (UEG) of China . According to UEG's 2020 documents (but signed and filed on July 27, 2021 in Hong Kong on behalf of the company's president, Zhang Hong Wei), after acquiring the assets of BP Pakistan (and renaming them "United Energy Pakistan Limited" ), UEG then acquired Kuwait Energy Plc on March 21, 2019, and has since engaged in further upstream oil and gas operations in Iraq and Egypt, as well as Pakistan. As a result, the award for developing a key part of Iraqi hydrocarbon infrastructure in Iraq was neatly and discreetly awarded by one Chinese company to another Chinese company. A progressive and aggressive expansion plan of Beijing in Iraq.

To this investment is added the exploitation of the enormous natural gas basin of Iraqi Block 9 in the Basra area, again by the Chinese Kuwait Energy Iraq Ltd, considered as an asset for strategic exploitation by the Iraqi government.

In this case we are talking about a new investment for 412 million dollars in the Sr

These agreements, in turn, came shortly after the January announcement that Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina) had signed a $ 880 million engineering, procurement and construction contract with Iraq's Missan International Refinery Co. build the 150,000 bpd Missan Refinery. According to local news in 2019, Missan International Refinery Company itself was formed by a little-known Swiss-Chinese consortium consisting of the Swiss industrial firm Satarem (15% stake) and China's Wahan (85% stake).

All this Chinese activity took place in parallel with the finalization, again earlier this year, of the 25-year agreement for China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) to acquire a 49% stake, and in the huge non-associated field. of Mansuriya, with the remainder held by the Iraqi Midland Oil Company. Extremely close to the Iranian border, and just north of Baghdad, the Mansuriya gas field has an estimated 150 million cubic meters of gas, with plans to increase production to at least 9 million cubic meters per day, making it by itself a precious gas deposit. China also wants to exploit the resources in the area of ​​Syria under Russian control. A strategic alliance that turns out to be profitable.

China also wants to build a traffic observation and control base in Iran. In short, the USA is literally ousted from the Middle East, even after the almost breaking of the traditional alliance with Saudi Arabia, while the meetings between the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Beijing authorities follow one another.

---

---

The article USA vs CHINA: the new war for Iraqi oil comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

---

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/usa-vs-cina-la-nuova-guerra-per-il-petrolio-iracheno/ on Fri, 15 Apr 2022 12:44:33 +0000.