Various reports that Chinese oil giants, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) are ‘considering acquiring’ U.S. oil titan ExxonMobil’s 32.7 per cent stake in Iraq’s supergiant West Qurna 1 oil (and gas) field are missing the point. The point is that China is already dominant at the site, not only through the 32.7 per cent stake held by PetroChina – the listed arm of CNPC – but also through the gradual acquisition of a range of huge supposedly ‘contract-only’ awards made to Chinese companies for work on the field. These most recently included the US$121 million engineering contract to upgrade the facilities that are used to extract gas during crude oil production to the China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corp (CPECC) that was exclusively highlighted by OilPrice.com in this very regard. These reports also miss the point that the moment that ExxonMobil made […]