Gifting Oil to china?

I came across this story on The East African, The title is – “Kenya gifts six key oil blocks to China”, with a barely legible graphic showing the blocks.
KenyaOilBlocks

excerpt:

In an unprecedented act of generosity, the government in April gave the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company Ltd (CNOOC) exclusive rights over a total of six out of 11 available blocks, including the hotly contested Blocks 9 and 10A in the Mandera area.

So dominant has China become in the oil exploration scene in Kenya that CNOOC alone now controls 28 per cent of the total exploration acreage in Kenya.

What. The. Fuzz. Since when did we start ‘gifting’ natural resources to other countries, something’s off, either the article misrepresents the agreement and creates the impression that Kenya is just giving stuff away…what is in it for Kenya, is the National oil corporation of Kenya part of the deal or is this actually what happened? How much more beneficial to Kenya would the deal with the european countries be?
Further down in the article is this:

Apparently, CNOOC negotiated and signed only one complete production sharing agreement for Block L4 with the government. The rest of the contracts were one-year-study agreements granting them exclusive access to the five blocks â?? with the option to relinquish the blocks at the end of the one-year period.

If you have any more info or a more contextualized reading of the article…please feel free to comment. I was just left with more questions and feel like the article was not complete nor clearly written.

Ps. Sorry for the very light posting, my laptop is kaputt, i will replace it in due time…

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13 thoughts on “Gifting Oil to china?

  1. I too think something just doesnt add up. I read somewhere that during the colonial times, China and Kenya had a close relationship in terms of exporting and importing goods, which goods or services I cant remember and will look it up.

    Ps – Eti what the fuzz? lol, I like and have adopted it

    Pps – Are you in the UK? Dixons and Curry’s are doing some great deals on laptops, around £349.00 and they have great features esp for this price!!

  2. lol, fuzz.. feel free…a pal of mine started saying it and just kinda stuck.

    Thanks, i am in states tho, i am shopping around…

    As for the chinese…any info you can dig up would be much appreciated. Their complicity in Darfur…well that is a whole other post.

  3. I can’t believe this. Who’s making these decisions? First they want to donate our wildlife to Thailand then the Titanium issue like Patrick Gathura says and now this? Good lawd! Here’s an idea, let’s also donate Mount Kenya and relinquish our territory on the Indian ocean off the mombasa coast. Maybe that’ll make Europeans friendly. Was Njenga Karume involved in this (pun intended!) ?

  4. Oh, already christmas time? Cool. Ok then I’ll have the best parts of Nairobi and maybe you can find me a nice shamba somewhere in Central with good soil.

    :-)

    Aterere….some nations fight for oil, others just buy their shares on the African continent. What a scenario…

  5. Come on you guys and gals…. this is an easy one!

    You know that china & chinese companies happily give bribes PLUS they don’t care two hoots about murdering civilians who agitate for more Human Rights! Heck, they kill their own so why do they care about some Africans???

    They are racist but in a “come we will help you kill yourselves” way!

    My gut feeling is that kibz & co will be bankrolled by the chinese. kibz & co will get riot gear, fake ballots, telecom support, cars & cash so that kibz keeps of “gifting” away Kenya!

    I would not be surprised if the ballots are printed in china! They will also mark them up for kibz. Careful… there is DANGER…

  6. Pingback: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Kenya: Oil as a gift?

  7. This story has been in the net for a long time and i find it quite in genuine , well in exploration it is a chance that you might find oil or you might not, to explore like the Chinese have pledged to do is a gamble if they do not find any oil they will suffer a loss, if there fore they offer to go it alone and do exploration on Kenya oil with out any input from our government i think the government got a good deal this is the kind of help that is the most essential to get the government on its own feet it is not like the rice the Taiwan government want to damn in our country, any way i trained as a geologist and i know exploration need more in put that the common person would comprehend, it would be a good thing if the Chinese actually explored.

  8. With anglo-leasing and Goldenberg we should not rule out another earth shaking corruption scandal this time touching on oil acreage.

    Amusing is it not that the MD of National Oil Corporation has never been investigated for her role in awarding the Nigerian crude oil contract worth USD 1.27 billion or KES 88.90 billion to Arcadia petroleum of UK and her take of 0.2% ostensibly to support NARC campaigns.

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