African states push back on Chinese oil deals - Here is the opening for this interesting article from the NYT & IHT, using the latter paper’s headline.
NIAMEY, Niger – In Niger, government officials have fought a Chinese oil giant step by step, painfully undoing parts of a contract they call ruinous. In neighboring Chad, they have been even more forceful, shutting down the Chinese and accusing them of gross environmental negligence. In Gabon, they have seized major oil tracts from China, handing them over to the state company.
China wants Africa’s oil as much as ever. But instead of accepting the old terms, which many African officials call unconditional surrender, some cash-starved African states are pushing back, showing an assertiveness unthinkable until recently and suggesting that the days of unbridled influence by the African continent’s mega-investor may be waning.
For years, China has found eager partners across the continent, where governments of every ilk have welcomed the nation’s deep pockets and hands-off approach to local politics as an alternative to the West.
Now China’s major state oil companies are being challenged by African governments that have learned decades of hard lessons about heedless resource-grabs by outsiders and are looking anew at the deals they or their predecessors have signed. Where the Chinese companies are seen as gouging, polluting or hogging valuable tracts, African officials have started resisting, often at the risk of angering one of their most important trading partners.
“This is all we’ve got,” said Niger’s oil minister, Foumakoye Gado. “If our natural resources are given away, we’ll never get out of this.”
My view - There are two important aspects to this situation: 1) Africa’s governments are becoming worldlier, which is certainly in their own interests; 2) Worldwide demand for crude oil, natural gas and all other forms of energy can only rise as the global economy recovers.
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Merkel gambles on big energy shift - Here is the opening of this informative article published by Power Engineering:
Energy-conscious to an extreme, Olaf Taeuber relies on just a single 5-watt bulb that gives off what he describes as a ”cozy” glow to light his kitchen when he comes home at night. If in real need, he switches on a neon tube, which soaks up all of 25 watts.
Even so, he found himself seeking help last week to fend off a threat from Berlin’s main power company to cut off his electricity, one of a growing number of Germans left unable to pay their soaring energy bills. He is among those feeling the immediate effects of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s most ambitious domestic project: Germany’s energiewende, or energy revolution, under which the country is shutting down its nuclear power reactors, discouraging coal-fired plants and encouraging a near-complete shift to renewable energy sources.
”Often, I don’t go into my living room in order to save electricity,” said Mr. Taeuber, 55, who manages a fleet of vehicles for a local social services provider. ”You feel the pain in your pocketbook.”
”Energy poverty,” as Germans now call it, is just one of the many problems confronting Ms. Merkel’s plan, the likes of which has never been tried – not just in Germany, but in any major industrial country. Energy prices in Germany – the highest in Europe – have spiked 30 percent over the last five years as costs have risen with the transition. Providers pulled the plug on an estimated 312,000 German households unable to pay their bills in 2011, according to official figures.
Newly constructed offshore wind farms churn unconnected to an energy grid still in need of expansion. Carbon emissions actually rose last year as oil- and coal-burning plants were fired up to close gaps in energy supplies. Energy-intensive industries have begun to shun the country for fear of the even steeper costs ahead.
My view - Arguably, this is a brave move by Mrs Merkel and Germany but is it entirely rational? Opinions will obviously vary on the emotive topic of expensive green energy versus fossil fuels such as crude oil and, increasingly, natural gas.
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