Posts Tagged ‘ energy geopolitics ’

Chinese Refinery in Kyrgyzstan to Reduce Russian Leverage

April 3, 2013

On April 2, 2013 Alexandros Petersen conducted an interview with Chris Rickleton, a Bishkek-based analyst and Instructor at the American University of Central Asia.

You have conducted in-depth research into Chinese plans for a refinery at Kara Balta in Kyrgyzstan.  What exactly are these plans and on what sort of timetable are they to be carried out?

The refinery is already behind schedule, but is expected to be built by July of this year, and operating at full capacity by September. Local media reported some tough talk (http://www.vesti.kg/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=17680:kitayskiy-npz-investiroval-v-ekonomiku-kyirgyizstana-poryadka-3-mlrd-somov&Itemid=79) in January between Chu Chan, the director of Zhongda, the Chinese state-owned firm that will run the refinery, and Kyrgyz Prime Minister Jantoro Saptybaldiyev. Saptybaldiyev was clearly very keen to see the refinery working as soon as possible and asked Chu why the facility still hadn’t been built. Chu referred to “misunderstandings” having led to the wrong equipment being delivered to the site. Chu also wanted the “sanitary zone”, which governs the distance residential homes can be from the refinery, reduced from 500 metres to 300 metres, which would have helped the company out in some of its compensation battles with local residents. When Saptybaldiyev rebuffed this offer, Chu reminded him that the company have already paid something like $4,000,000 in taxes and that they will have invested $250 million into the project by the time it is up and running.

Read more »

How the West is wholly missing China’s geopolitical focus

January 10, 2012
By Alexandros Petersen.

First published in Foreign Policy’s Oil and the Glory blog, January 10, 2012.

On a recent visit to China, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov smiled broadly as he was awarded the title of Emeritus Professor at Peking University. Yet his satisfaction was probably less  the academic distinction than a lucrative energy export deal he had signed earlier that day — 65 billion cubic meters of natural gas, roughly half of China’s 2010 gas consumption, would eventually flow from Turkmenistan’s massive fields to China’s seemingly insatiable consumers.

This end-of-year agreement prompted some observers to proclaim that gas-rich Turkmenistan had achieved a coup against regional political powerhouse Russia: For years, Moscow has been negotiating a gas export deal with Beijing, but what would it do now that China was receiving so much supply from Turkmenistan? Yet that analysis is backwards: Rather than a Turkmen power play, the natural gas deal was a geopolitical chess move by Beijing, whose fundamental interest in the region is both raw resources, and raw power. While the West is focused on constraining China’s actions in the Asia-Pacific, Beijing is capitalizing on vast space for influence to its west in Central Asia.

Read more »

Russia, China and the Geopolitics of Energy in Central Asia

November 18, 2011

By Alexandros Petersen with Katinka Barysch.

First published as a Centre for European Reform report on November 16, 2011.

Introduction

Energy has come to symbolise the geopolitics of the 21st century, reflecting countries’ diminishing reliance on military and political power. Today, energy is an instrument of geopolitical competition, like nuclear weapons or large armies were during the Cold War. The means of international influence have become more diverse and sophisticated, but the goals remain much the same: national security, power projection, and control over resources and territory. Read more »