The world re-considered

Through a recent discovery on the net, VPRO energie, I came across this pretty nifty world map.

It resizes the world proportional to their oil & gas reserves. Interesting stuff.

How to make sense of the world...?

In absence of actual work to do I spend my days in the office reading news & blogs, posting away on boards, oh and finding job ads and writing applications. Who would have thought earning money would be this stressful!

The highlights of today’s news selection:

* Cultivating Loneliness – Robert D. Kaplan - an article by Kaplan on the differences between journalism and travel writing (through Coming Anarchy)

* The continuing controversy surrounding the Danish cartoons which were published in a national paper last September and depicted the prophet Mohammed:
Cartoon outrage bemuses Denmark
France enters Muslim cartoon row (unfortunately I haven’t been able to load the French site though...)

* The State of the Union – and mostly the fact that all reporting that I’ve seen on it focus so much on Bush's resolution to break the American ‘addiction’ to oil... (on imported oil, that is)
Bush urges end to “oil addiction”

And oh yeah, Iran. Apparently even Russia and China have said they recommend to refer the issue to the UNSC? Surprising... I wonder what will happen at the IAEA meet tomorrow.

I can't believe so much is going wrong at the same time (okay, maybe GWB's comments are positive but still). Weird world it is...

But to keep my mind away from serious stuff I’m also slowly expanding my network on Hyves (VERY slowly, that is)...
Hmm, will have to post something about that sometime too. Jules has written about blogs and communities, and the popularity of this interactive network (or whatever you should call them) in particular has really surprised me...

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okay, after reading through a few more blogs, here are some other posts about the 'addicted to oil'-catchphrase:
SOTU Followup by Kevin Drum
and of course lots at The Oil Drum

China: a threat to American energy security?

Update: Here's another article on CNOOC, Unocal and general energy security issues in the Guardian on July 3

Original:

Over on The Oil Drum Ianqui links to the news that the US Congress is in the process of blocking the Chinese CNOOC bid on Unocal. The New York Times (registration required) gives more details.
CNOOC is currently competing with Chevron to take over Unocal. Apparently many members of Congress see this move as a threat to 'national and energy security in the United States'. Funny thing is though that Congress hasn't acted this forcefully to other foreign takeovers in the past years in the American oil industry. And, the current planned take over is not likely to affect American oil and gas supplies all that much. The more interesting parts of Unocal activities are Asian based in for example Indonesia.

It's interesting to see the Congress reaction to something about which most analysts agree on won't make all that much of a difference to the US' energy situation. CNOOC still has a few weeks to get its things in order, and I'm curious to see what will happen.
One of the more interesting parts in the NYT article shows the opposing views:

"We cannot afford to have a major U.S. energy supplier controlled by the Communist Chinese," Mr. Pombo said on the House floor. "If we allow this sale to go forward we are taking a huge risk."

But Representative Jim Moran, a Virginia Republican, said blocking the Chinese bid was a dangerous move. "They are holding a financial guillotine over the neck of our economy, and they will drop that if we do things like this that are not well considered," Mr. Moran said on the House floor. "If we don't let them invest in western firms, what are they going to do? They are going to invest in Iran or Sudan and make those governments much stronger than they are today."

It's very important to realize what the consequences could be of blocking the CNOOC bid. China will want to get its oil from somewhere and already has substantial interests in Iran and Sudan. It will be easy to expand these activities, which will be contrary to American interests.

CNOOC is very much acting out of strategic interests; not surprising as it is state-owned for 70%. This obviously gives it a very different rationale for its activities than other US and Europe-based oil/gas companies. Others have also pointed out the inconsistency of the Congress' actions with the US ideas about free trade.

There are a few more articles on China's hunt for oil here:
China's costly quest for energy control (NYT)
China's global hunt for oil (BBC news)

China vs Japan re gas - Yomiuri perspectives

In this weekend of catching up with reading and news, I came across some fairly interesting material in the Japan Focus news briefing. Having been translated from four parts of editorials printed in the Yomiuri Shinbun (which I unfortunately missed), the articles start off with a discussion of the conflict in the East China Sea between China and Japan but continue on to Japan-UAE ties and competition for oil in Central Asia.

In all of the articles it is clear that the authors believe Japan should accord a more strategic and political importance to ensure access to natural resources. Energy policy should focus more on (diplomatic) efforts to make Japan more visible in the international oil market. Personally, I think a failure to do this more openly is one of the reasons behind the wavering support of Russia for the East Siberian pipeline to the port of Nakhodka. If Japan would have responded more enthusiastically to the initial news in December 2004 that the pipeline would be constructed in Japan's favour there might've already have been a decision. At least, I haven't really come across a lot of positive news from Japan about those first reports from Russia. And now it appears to all go back towards the Chinese option again.

In any case, the articles linked to (in the title of the post) refer to several pending issues, and connect the energy issue to other things such as FTA's and so on which is quite interesting.

Edit: I only noticed after posting that there's another recent article on Japan Focus on energy. India-China-US and the energy conondrum Haven't read it myself, but looks interesting.

Chinese energy demand growth - consequences for global energy markets

The Financial Times publishes a Asia Insight series, which is consistently filled with news, interesting perspectives and everything else you would expect from the FT.
The latest (I think) has as its theme China goes global. The articles themselves don't seem to be digitalized, but this links to the actual magazine. See especially the following articles:

- China and America's common energy interests (p.12)
- Increasing trade reveals Beijing's growing profile in resource-rich Latin America (p.8)
- Energy drives Beijing's trade with Tehran (p.6)
- reports on CNOOC, Unocal and more oil sector news (p.20-21)

Am off to read and write!

[edit: another Asia Insight: Asia's emerging giants: China and India; interesting stuff!]