China’s Oil Investment Falls, Raising Security Risks – Analysis ( Source- Eurasia Review / Author- Michael Lelyveld)
Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Daniel Case) Source- Eurasia Review Author- Michael Lelyveld A steep drop in China’s oil investment may make it more dependent on imports than ever and more determined to advance its interests in the South China Sea, recent data suggests. So far this year, China’s growth in fixed-asset investments (FAI) like buildings and machinery has fallen short of forecasts with a major decline in the petroleum sector, according to official reports. While overall FAI, outside rural households, rose 10.5 percent in the first four months of the year, investment in the oil and gas sector plunged 27.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The sharp cutback is a reaction to low crude prices and profit pressures on China’s state-owned oil companies, analysts say. The result was a 5.6-percent dip in domestic oil production to 16.6 million metric tons in April, or an average of 4.04 million barrels