US Approves Chinese Buying Nexen

Of course the Chinese buying Nexen has nothing to do with the Keystone XL pipeline, but there is something "disconcerting" for lack of a better word, I guess.

The initial argument "against" the Keystone XL was the routing. Now that the routing has been resolved (?), the faux environmentalists are arguing the "carbon" issue, something along the line that heavy oil will produce more atmospheric CO2, and the US should not be party to any project in which CO2 is being released into the atmosphere. [Including breathing, I assume, but I digress.]

Nexen, from its website:

Nexen: an upstream oil and gas company responsibly developing energy resources in the UK North Sea, offshore West Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and Western Canada. Nexen has three principal businesses: conventional oil and gas, oil sands and shale gas. 

Oil sands and shale gas. Sort of what the faux environmentalists are concerned about, I guess. But the US approves the Chinese buying Nexen, even as the US killed the Keystone XL, a Canadian-US endeavor. The Canadian-US endeavor involving oil sands heavy oil was not approved (and probably never will be), and yet the CNOOC-Nexen deal is approved pretty quickly and without much fanfair.

I don't understand it but apparently the CNOOC-Nexen deal is even more interesting: the Chinese will now be drilling for oil in America's Gulf of Mexico but won't be paying any royalties to the US, if the following is to be believed, as reported in the Oil & Gas Journal:

“Chinese government-owned oil corporations should not be allowed to drill for American oil in the Gulf of Mexico without paying a dime in royalties to US taxpayers,” Markey said. “The Interior Department should have the authority to review all possible transfers of oil and gas leases on public lands so that we can prevent massive wealth transfers from US taxpayers to foreign governments.”  

Anyway, this is idle rambling. Just an observation. If newbies don't understand how this ended up on a blog about the Bakken, read the welcome/disclaimer.

Good, bad, or indifferent, the approval was appropriate. 

[Added later: Maybe this is another way of looking at this. Canadian oil sands oil will be brought to market with or without the Keystone XL. Killing the Keystone XL is simply "harassing" America's closest ally. Whether or not CNOOC was "allowed" to buy Nexen, Nexen operations were going to continue. For whatever reason, the US chose not to "harass" China.]