Oil in China

Current Event #4: Jenelle Davis

September 7, 2006

SOC 202/ Fall 2006


The environmental article I read this week had to do with oil in China. China for many years has imported its oil from foreign countries by sea. The article goes into to talking about how China is looking for cleaner alternative energy resources. China is also looking to work with the United States and the European Union to insure safe supply oil. China is currently investing in and aiding with Sudan in exchange for oil and gas supplies. China also did about $8 billion worth of business with Iran. This year Russia will be providing China with 15 million tons of oil by rail and hopefully by November 2008 a pipeline will run from Russia to China providing 30 million tons of oil.

I feel that is article has some significance because oil and gas are both big issues that pop up in the news all the time. It’s really interesting to see the oil crisis from another country not just the United States. I didn’t know that Russia was a supplier of oil, I always assumed Iraq, Iran and other Middle East countries. I would have thought that China would have been leading the way with alternatives for oil, seeing as they are the second largest consumer of oil in the world. This just provides that it’s a worldwide problem and it will take the efforts from countries around the world to help develop alternatives, because everyone is effect by this not just China or United States. Just because they are the only ones in the news doesn’t mean that smaller lesser-known countries aren’t facing the same issue.


Source:

Schlesinger, David and Eric Hall. “China Says Energy Need Won’t Cause Conflict”. Environmental News Network. 7, Sept 2006. Reuters. 7 Sept <2006http://enn.com/today.html?id=11204>.