CNOOC’s US$15 billion purchase of Calgary-based oil company Nexen, if given Canadian government approval, comes at a high price but secures access to benchmark pricing of Brent oil from the North Sea – where fellow Chinese outfit Sinopec is also dipping its toes.
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The significance of the agreements on energy cooperation achieved during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recently completed visit to Kazakhstan is only an indicator of the consolidation of deeper tectonic shifts in Eurasian security and economic affairs. A new triangle is emerging in East Central Eurasian geo-economics among Russia, Kazakhstan and China. (It is being complemented by the emergence of another such triangle in West Central Eurasia among Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine.) Energy cooperation is a linchpin of each of the emerging triangular ententes, but the ententes themselves go far beyond energy.