From the US Dept of Energy website
http://www.fe.doe.gov/oil_gas/china_forum/
"The United States and China have agreed to establish an Oil and Gas Industry Forum. The overall objective of the Forum is to promote discussion and information exchange among representatives of U.S. and Chinese petroleum companies currently operating in China. The goal is that these discussions will assist China in its efforts to secure reliable and economical sources of oil and natural gas. The first meeting of the Forum was held on November 2-4, 1998, in Beijing. The second Forum was held on July 20-22, 1999 Houston, Texas. The Forum provides a new vehicle for cooperation between government and industry experts of the two nations in the petroleum sector. The U.S. sponsors of the Forum are the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce."
Unocal were there in 1998 and 1999, with a band of 5 representatives, the largest group. In fact Mr. Graydon Laughbaum, Senior Vice President, New Ventures, UNOCAL Corp. gave a presentation in 1998 entitled "U.S. Industry Perspective -- Developing China's Gas Market". The full presentation can be found in PDF (requiring Adobe Acrobat) at
http://www.fe.doe.gov/oil_gas/china_forum/pdf/laughb.pdf
In this he goes on at length about how Malaysia and Indonesia gas markets were developed. But I want to bring to your attention the following quotes;
Mr Laughbaum said
“The Asian Development Bank estimates that as much as 70 billion dollars in investment will be required for the development of the natural gas infrastructure in Asia over the next 15 years. In addition, hundreds of billions of dollars will be required for similar development in North America, South America and Russia over a similar period.
To attract this amount of private capital, governments are developing and implementing policies that make their economies attractive to private project developers and financial institutions.
… We believe US technology and know how, if provided through mutually beneficial partnerships, can make a number of China’s most challenging energy development projects economically and commercially viable.
US companies are eager to participate in full, long-term partnerships with China, as the energy base necessary to fuel the growth of China’s economy and improve opportunities for the Chinese people is developed.
US energy companies bring proven technologies and experience, access to private capital, opportunities for your very capable workforce, and most important a sincere desire to support and mutually benefit from the synergy which will be created through these partnerships.”
It is interesting that Unocal and a number of other major US oil companies are attending such meetings and openly discussing how they can help China, who explicitly say in their presentations that Caspian Basin gas is ideal for them and that political instability on their North Western borders is giving them grief.
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