Why Is Obama Allowing Chinese to Buy U.S. Oil and Gas Deposits?

by THE AMERICAN DREAM May 23, 2012

If we are trying to become independent of foreign oil, then why is the Obama administration allowing the Chinese government to buy up U.S. oil and gas deposits worth billions of dollars?  This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  The United States desperately needs to maintain control over its own domestic energy resources so that we can end our addiction to foreign oil. 

As I have written about previously, the United States actually has plenty of oil.  If we would simply use the resources that we already have, we would never have to import a single drop of foreign oil.  But instead, we continue to be the largest importer of oil on the planet and we are allowing China to rapidly buy up oil and gas deposits inside the United States.  This is fundamentally wrong and it is a serious threat to our national security.  But apparently everything is for sale in the United States today, and that includes our precious energy resources.

The Chinese government is using two giant corporations to buy up these energy resources.

The first is the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).  According to Wikipedia, this corporation is 100 percent owned by the Chinese government....

CNOOC Group is a state-owned oil company, fully owned by the Government of the People's Republic of China, and the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) performs the rights and obligations of shareholder on behalf of the government.

The second is Sinopec Corporation.  Sinopec Group is the largest shareholder (about 75% of the shares) in Sinopec Corporation.  And as the Sinopec website tells us, Sinopec Group is owned by the Chinese government....

Sinopec Group, the largest shareholder of Sinopec Corp., is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical group incorporated by the State in 1998 based on the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Funded by the State, it is a State authorized investment arm and State-owned controlling company.

So wherever you see CNOOC or Sinopec you can replace those names with the Chinese government.  The Chinese government essentially runs both of those companies.

And both companies have been very busy buying up U.S. oil and gas deposits.

For example, CNOOC recently completed a 570 million dollar deal that gives it a one-third interest in huge oil and gas deposits in Colorado and Wyoming.  The following is from Wyoming Energy News....

Chinese energy company Cnooc Ltd. has agreed to pay $570 million for a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s 800,000 leased acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming. The acreage is in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Powder River basins. Cnooc is China's biggest offshore oil and natural gas producer.

In fact, according to a recent Business Insider article, this deal gives the Chinese government the right to a third of any new oil discovered by Chesapeake Energy in the entire region....

The Niobrara Shale formation stretches over Colorado and Wyoming, as well as Kansas and Nebraska. Chesapeake Energy's position is in Wyoming and Colorado. If Chesapeake find any more oil in this region, CNOOC has the rights to 33.3% of what is found.

But this is not the only area of the country where China now owns energy rights.  The following is an excerpt from a recent state-by-state breakdown that appeared in the Wall Street Journal....

Louisiana: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 265,000 acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale after a broader $2.5-billion deal with Devon Energy.

Michigan: Sinopec gained a one-third interest in 350,000 acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Ohio: Sinopec acquired a one-third stake in Devon Energy's 235,000 Utica Shale acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Oklahoma: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 215,000 acres in a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Texas: Cnooc acquired a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy's 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a $2.16-billion deal.

The Texas deal was particularly noteworthy.  The following is how a San Antonio news source described that deal....

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

So why is the Obama administration allowing this to happen?

Are they so desperate to have China continue lending money to the United States that they would allow the Chinese government to pillage our precious energy resources?

Somebody needs to be asking our politicians that question.

But oil and gas are not the only U.S. assets that the Chinese have been buying up.

In a previous article, I detailed how the Chinese have been purchasing huge chunks of real estate all over the country as well.

For example, a recent Forbes article detailed some of the real estate deals that China has been doing in New York....

According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are "snapping up luxury apartments" and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.

In addition, it was recently announced that the Federal Reserve will now allow Chinese banks to buy up American banks.

Where will all of this end?

Should all of us start learning to speak Chinese?

Meanwhile, our trade deficit with China continues to get even larger.  Our trade deficit with China last year was $295.5 billion, which was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the world.  This year, we are already on a pace to break that record.

So thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars will continue to leave the United States and go to China.

And China will continue to use some of the money they are getting from us to buy up pieces of America.

Does anyone else out there see something very, very wrong with all of this?