Как китайцы деньги зажали.
Не успел я в соседнем посте написать про анти-коррупционные разборки в Китае, как по рынку прошли нехорошие слухи - китайская сторона, дескать, пытается всячески отскочить от покупки канадских активов, которые ВНЕЗАПНО оказались не такими привлекательными, как казалось ранее.
Пока китайские следственные органы расследуют деятельность высших должостных лиц китайских компаний за рубежом (в данном случае - в Канаде), участники рынка напряглись в томительном ожидании - "PetroChina trying to trim $1.23-billion payment to Athabasca: source"
CALGARY - PetroChina, the Chinese oil giant rocked by a corruption scandal that has spread to its Canadian unit, is trying to reduce a $1.23-billion payment to Calgary-based Athabasca Oil Corp. for oil sands properties it believes are of poorer than expected quality, a source close to PetroChina said Friday.
Sources also said the Chinese state-controlled company, where at least four executives associated with the $5-billion oil sands deal with Athabasca in 2010 are under investigation, is frustrated with the high price it paid for the assets, the massive cost overruns incurred to build facilities to produce them and with being pushed to purchase an additional 40% of an oil sands project it doesn’t already own.
PetroChina, which does business in Canada under various names, including Brion Energy Corp., and other Chinese companies have expressed disappointment with the high prices paid for Canadian assets and about encountering difficulties in turning the assets into oil production.
According to Reuters, China’s investigators are scrutinizing offshore and domestic spending at the company, including oil service contracts, equipment supply deals and oil field acquisitions. In addition to operations in Canada, the investigation has touched business in Indonesia, China and Turkmenistan. “The scale of the probe into CNPC is unprecedented, but perhaps the severity of corruption at the company is also unprecedented,” Yi Qing, a Beijing-based independent economist, told the news agency.
Если подвести краткий итог статьи, то можно сказать следующее - китайские официальные власти ВНЕЗАПНО осознали, что китайские же руководители зарубежных активов гнали полную туфту своему начальству и на основании совершенно липовой информации Китай покупал переоцененные и никому особо не нужные предприятия. Осознав, что дело не чисто - китайские власти решили разобраться с создавшейся ситуацией (читай - организовать посадки и массовые расстрелы) и в конце концов понять - что же им такого впарили добрые люди.
Сейчас, конечно, трудно сказать чем закончатся подобные разборки, но одно можно сказать совершенно точно - время для анонсирования и запуска проекта "Сила Сибири" выбрано далеко не самое удачное - тут со старыми проектам бы разобраться.
Upd. А теперь посмотрим, как обстоят дела у нас - Wooing China runs into local difficulty in Russia far east
In 2008, two Chinese forestry companies invested here to fell trees for their nearby factory. Two years later, they found the door slammed in their faces after Russia closed the local border crossing.
“[To begin with], we would ship the wood across the river to our plant in China for further processing, just a few kilometres away,” says Zhao Fuquan, director of the sawmill Heilongjiang Xin Chun Timber Group runs here. “Now, every truckload has to make a 700km detour. That cut our profits in half.”
His frustration is but one example of the hurdles Chinese companies face in conquering Russia.
But echoing views widespread in Russia, he complains that Chinese investors are mainly interested in getting their hands on Russia’s natural resources and it is hard to persuade them to set up manufacturing operations or employ Russian staff - something Moscow considers vital if the partnership is to benefit the Russian economy. “The Chinese want whatever is most profitable,” says Mr Tarasov.
As China’s vice-president argued during a Moscow visit in May: “You have the land and the resources, and we have the people and the money.”
Ну, это к вопросу о том - кто будет строить газопровод и всю сопутствующую инфраструктуру.