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Date: October 18, 2024 at 02:41:45
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: China’s Green Energy Wave enters the Middle East |
URL: https://www.juancole.com/author/neil-thompson |
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China’s Green Energy Wave enters the Middle East
NEIL THOMPSON
10/18/2024
"London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Facing rising trade barriers
and diplomatic tensions with the US and the EU, Chinese renewable energy
companies are turning to Middle Eastern states as an alternative market for
goods including electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries, and solar panels.
The US, the EU and Canada have all imposed tariffs on Chinese EVs, amid
accusations that Beijing is dumping excess Chinese production overseas and
using unfair subsidies. “Global markets are now flooded with cheaper [Chinese]
electric cars. And their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies,”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September last
year.
The EU has begun a probe into Chinese wind turbine companies. Then-
Commission Executive Vice-President for Competition Margarethe Vestager
warned that a wave of subsidised Chinese wind turbine exports: “is not only
dangerous for our competitiveness. It also jeopardises our economic security.”
The EU remains scarred by its loss of a trade war to China over the bloc’s solar
power industry a decade earlier. Western governments and activists have also
expressed concerns that China’s green sector is tied to human rights abuses
like forced labour in Xinjiang.
In the Middle East, however, many governments remain open to Chinese green
sector exports and have struck commercial agreements to gain investment
from its major firms. In July, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund struck joint
investment deals with Chinese solar power companies Jinko Solar and TCL
Zhonghuan. Meanwhile, Saudi investment business ALGIHAZ signed a contract
to build an energy storage facility with Chinese company Sungrow. The
Australian Griffith Asia Institute calculated that altogether Chinese firms
worked on green energy projects across the Middle East worth about $9.5
billion over 2018-2023.
Middle Eastern States Piggyback Off China
China’s government and Chinese state-owned or state-linked companies have
been able to offer commercial and political advantages to Middle Eastern
governments seeking to decarbonize their economies. Western engineering
and manufacturing firms’ projects are regulated by numerous rules intended to
prevent corruption, environmental harm and other negative development
outcomes. Chinese companies under the direction of the ruling Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) face no such restraints, though the quality of the
infrastructure they have produced under China’s signature Belt & Road Project
(BRI) initiative has varied. For autocratic Middle Eastern governments like the
Gulf monarchies, however, Chinese companies have the ability to build high-
technology critical infrastructure without the need to appease external
stakeholders like the human rights groups or independent media outlets found
in Western countries.
“Xi of Arabia,”
Chinese companies are also generally happy to operate in a Middle Eastern
business environment that still often relies on patronage to get deals done. The
CCP has cultivated particularly close ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran,
Egypt, and Algeria, with whose governments Beijing has signed comprehensive
strategic partnerships (the most elevated type of bilateral agreement with
China). These relationships have borne increasing fruit as the BRI has matured
and new technology has widened the appeal of clean energy and other green
industries. Petrostates like Saudi Arabia have belatedly woken up to the threat
of climate change and their own potential ability to take advantage of clean
energy like solar power.
Doing Deals to Decarbonize
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin
Zayed Al Nahyan in Beijing in June. Xi promised his government would
cooperate more closely with the Arab country on a range of industries including
“information technology, artificial intelligence, the digital economy, and new
energy.” China was already the UAE’s biggest trading partner in 2022 while the
Arab state was Beijing’s biggest Arab trading partner, the UAE’s economy
ministry said in 2023. While renewable energy development is only one aspect
of the burgeoning diplomatic and trading relationship between the two sides, it
is an important consideration for the UAE and its Net Zero 2050 strategy to
decarbonize the country’s economy. Given China’s private sector is subordinate
to the political aims of the ruling CCP, further Chinese green investment is likely
to flow to the UAE in 2025. The UAE is also investing in renewables in East Asia,
with its green energy firm Masdar aiming to install 2 gigawatts of renewable
power in ASEAN countries by 2025. The firm was invited by the Philippines
government to invest in Manila’s green sector too.
In May, the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani bin Ahmed Al
Zeyoudi, said “new energy” and “critical minerals” were among the areas the
country was interested in engaging with Beijing. Chinese CEOs held meetings
with UAE officials in July following the UAE president’s state visit to discuss
bilateral cooperation in various areas, including solar power and renewable
energy. The UAE’s example is being replicated by other Middle Eastern
governments with whom China has cultivated close relations. At the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation in September, Egypt signed agreements worth more
than $1.1 billion with Chinese companies, which included the country’s first
green chemical plant. China’s Befar Group will build a $500 million facility
powered energy sources including natural gas, wind and solar energy. A second
deal involves the creation of a $100 million solar panel factory. Chinese
companies are building solar power plants in Algeria and becoming investors
and co-investors in Saudi and UAE solar and wind projects as these two
countries decarbonise their power grids.
China Seeks to Refute Dumping Narratives
Meanwhile, Middle Eastern demand for Chinese clean energy infrastructure
and products allows Beijing to claim it is not engaged in overproduction in
sectors like EV manufacturing or renewable energy products and dumping the
resulting excess on foreign markets. Much criticism of Chinese trade practices
in the country’s green industries has come from the US and other Western
governments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in April that excess Chinese
manufacturing capacity in sectors like EVs and solar panels was intensifying.
Chinese state media and CEOs like the head of vehicle manufacturer Great Wall
Motor International have denied this, although non-Western countries like
Turkey have also imposed tariffs on Chinese exports like EVs. China has taken
Turkey to the World Trade Organization in response.
Trade tensions between China and governments under pressure to restrict
Chinese green technology exports are likely to endure in many parts of the
world. In the Middle East, however, Beijing and local regimes continue to
discover synergies between their development needs. China’s sluggish
economy and growing trade tensions with the Global North have left it in need
of new markets for its goods. Meanwhile, Middle Eastern governments need the
country’s know-how and deep pockets if they are to overhaul their own 20th-
century fossil fuel infrastructure and create new jobs in the emerging green
economies of the 21st century. "
Neil Thompson is a freelance writer who has lived and travelled extensively
through East Asia and the Middle East. He holds an MA in the International
Relations of East Asia from Durham University, and is now based in the UK
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[19279] [19280] [19281] [19282] [19283] |
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Date: October 19, 2024 at 16:14:46
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: China’s Green Energy Wave enters the Middle East |
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No mention of the 600 unregistered, camouflage oil
tankers floating around?
Yeah. Green China.
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Responses:
[19280] [19281] [19282] [19283] |
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19280 |
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Date: October 20, 2024 at 15:22:42
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: no source(NT) |
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Responses:
[19281] [19282] [19283] |
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Date: October 21, 2024 at 07:25:11
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: source/Iranian Economy Buoyed By 'Dark Fleet' Oil Shipments To China |
URL: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-economy-oil-shipments-dark-fleet-china-sanctions/32764518.html |
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If I recall, the original post was on International, by
Ryan. Perhaps you missed it due to Milton.
Here is another.
******
More than 6,000 kilometers from Tehran, in treacherous
waters off the shores of Singapore, a "dark fleet" of
oil tankers waits to offload the precious cargo that
helps keep Iran's economy afloat -- a dependency that
could also sink it.
The fleet has grown steadily over the past five years,
delivering Iranian crude to China as the countries work
in concert to circumvent international sanctions that
target Tehran's lucrative oil exports. But while the
clandestine trade has buoyed Iran's budget, it also
comes at tremendous cost and risk to Tehran.
Iran gives China a hefty discount to take its banned
oil, taking 12 to 15 percent off the price of each
barrel to make it worthwhile for Beijing to take on the
liability of skirting sanctions, according to research
by the data analysis unit of RFE/RL's Radio Farda.
Additional costs add up as well: ship-to-ship
operations to offload the oil, middlemen, hidden-money
transfers, and rebranding the oil to mask its Iranian
origin and make it appear to come from a third country,
said Dalga Khatinoglu, an expert on Iranian energy
issues.
Altogether, said Khatinoglu, who contributes to Radio
Farda's data analysis unit, Iran's budget figures and
official statements indicate that 30 percent of the
country's potential oil revenue was wasted last year.
And with the draft budget for the next fiscal year
currently being debated by the Iranian parliament,
there are no guarantees that Tehran's bet on quenching
China's thirst for oil will continue to be a panacea.
With Iran almost entirely dependent on Beijing to take
its oil and on other entities to facilitate the trade,
Tehran has managed to inject desperately needed revenue
into its economy. But Iran has also put itself at risk
of seeing its main revenue stream dry up.
"There's definitely an extent to which Tehran has
become more dependent on the likes of China or those
who would be willing to deal with Iran in spite of
Western sanctions," said Spencer Vuksic, a director of
the consultancy firm Castellum, which closely tracks
international sanctions regimes.
Vuksic said Iran is "definitely put in a weak position
by having to depend on a single external partner who's
willing to deal with and engage with Tehran."
Oily Deficit
Iran has trumpeted its foreign trade, claiming in
December that oil revenue had contributed to a positive
trade balance for the first eight months of the year.
But the oil and gas sector, by far the largest part of
the Iranian economy, will not be enough to save the
current budget of around $45 billion that was approved
last year.
The Iranian fiscal year, which follows the Persian
calendar and will end in March, is expected to result
in a major deficit. In presenting the draft budget to
parliament in December, President Ebrahim Raisi
acknowledged a $10 billion deficit.
But the shortfall could be much higher -- up to $13.5
billion, the largest in Iran's history -- by the end of
the fiscal year, according to Radio Farda. This is
because data shows that just half of the expected oil
revenues were realized, in part due to lower than
expected oil prices and additional costs and discounts
related to Tehran's oil trade with China.
Whereas the budget expectations were based on oil being
sold at $85 per barrel, the price of crude dipped below
$75 per barrel in December and has fluctuated wildly
recently amid concerns that tensions in the Middle East
could disrupt shipping and production.
An Iranian oil platform in the Persian Gulf (file
photo)
An Iranian oil platform in the Persian Gulf (file
photo)
And while Iran expected to export 1.5 million barrels
of oil per day (bpd), it exported only 1.2 million bpd
in the first eight months of the year, according to
Radio Farda.
Altogether, Radio Farda estimates that Iran lost some
$15 million per day in potential revenue through its
trade with China, which accounts for more than 40
percent of the Iranian budget.
For the upcoming budget of about $49 billion,
expectations for domestic and foreign oil revenue have
dipped by 3 percent, according to Khatinoglu, even as
the projected budget itself has risen by about 18
percent.
Accounting for the fluctuation of global oil prices,
which fell far short of the average estimated for the
current year, the peg has been lowered to $71 per
barrel. Tehran is also expecting lower oil-export
volumes -- which only briefly met forecasts of 1.5
million bpd, the highest levels seen since 2018 -- with
only 1.35 million bpd forecast.
Iran is reportedly expected to plug the gap left by the
lower oil revenue by increasing taxes on wealthy
individuals and businesses, while Khatinoglu says
Tehran will try to boost revenue by raising domestic
energy prices.
Shipping Competition
Adding to the uncertainty of Iran's finances is the
potential for weaker Chinese demand for its oil and
competition from Russia which, like Tehran, sends
banned oil to Beijing.
And international sanctions are continuously evolving
to punish countries and entities that foster Iran's
illegal oil trade, threatening to capsize the dark
fleet that helps sustain Tehran's so-called resistance
economy.
On the other hand, the mercurial nature of oil price
fluctuations and demand could work to Iran's advantage.
With Venezuelan oil no longer under sanctions, Russia
is left as the only competitor for clandestine oil
sales to China.
And Iran's capacity to export oil is greater than ever,
allowing it to more easily sell its oil to Beijing when
demand is high.
This is largely due to the considerable expansion of
the global "dark fleet" of oil since crippling U.S.
sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports were restored
after the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018
from the Iran nuclear deal that has been agreed with
six world powers.
The deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), offered sanctions relief in
exchange for curbs on Tehran's controversial nuclear
program. After the deal went into effect in January
2016, Iran more than doubled its legal oil exports in a
few months, eventually reaching a high of 1.54 million
bpd in 2018.
But with the U.S. withdrawal from the deal and
subsequent reintroduction of sanctions that year,
Iranian oil exports plummeted. And after the exceptions
granted to a handful of countries -- including China --
that were allowed to continue to import Iranian oil
expired in 2019, Iranian oil exports slowed to a
trickle.
This was partly because Iran was not equipped to export
its oil and had no immediate customers willing to defy
the sanctions. But that changed with the fine-tuning of
Iran’s efforts to defy sanctions, the fivefold rise in
the number of dark-fleet tankers, and China's
willingness to take the risk of doing business with
Tehran -- although Beijing has not acknowledged
unregistered imports of Iranian oil.
Today the dark fleet of often aging ships -- nearly
half of them VLCCs (very large crude carriers) -- has
risen to up to 1,000 vessels, according to Vortexa,
which tracks international shipping. Many smaller ships
are involved in Russian oil exports, which account for
about 80 percent of all opaque tanker activity. But
Iran had access to nearly 200 tankers, many of them
supertankers, as of early 2023, according to Vortexa.
More than 20 ships, 13 of them VLCCs, joined the
Iranian fleet in 2023, Vortexa reported in June,
contributing to record-high Iranian oil exports under
sanctions.
Vortexa attributed the rise to increased Chinese
demand, the addition of the new tankers to shuttle
Iranian oil after many had switched to shipping Russian
oil, and the decline of Iranian inventories drawn down
to boost exports amid heightened competition with
Russia for the Chinese market.
While Chinese demand for Iranian oil slowed in October,
Vortexa noted in a subsequent report, Washington’s
removal of oil sanctions on Venezuela that month opened
the possibility of higher demand for Iranian oil.
Uncertain Waters
In an October report, the global trade intelligence
firm Kpler explained that tankers illegally shipping
Iranian oil commonly "go dark" upon entering the
Persian Gulf by turning off their transponders,
technically known as the automatic identification
system (AIS). After visiting Iran's main oil terminal
on Kharg Island or other ports, they then reemerge
after a few days indicating they are carrying a full
load.
From there, the ships offload the oil with ship-to-ship
transfers that take place in unauthorized zones, mostly
in the Singapore Straits. Eventually the oil, rebranded
as coming from Malaysia or Middle Eastern countries,
enters China, where it is processed by more than 40
independent "teapot" refiners that have little exposure
to international sanctions or the global financial
system.
Sanctions Revisited
The challenge for those trying to halt the illicit
trade in Iranian oil as a way to hold Tehran
accountable for its secretive nuclear activities and
dire human rights record, is how to make the negatives
of dealing with Iran greater than the financial
benefits.
That has put the illicit seaborne trade of oil -- both
Iranian and Russian, owing to the ongoing war in
Ukraine -- under greater scrutiny by the international
community.
"There's continuous refining of the sanctions programs
to include and expand sanctions against those involved
in evasion, and that includes sanctioning so-called
dark fleets," said Castellum’s Vuksic, noting that the
number of targeted sanctions against Iranian
individuals and entities rose by more than 1,000 last
year.
A tanker is photographed by satellite taking on Iranian
oil in Asia.
A tanker is photographed by satellite taking on Iranian
oil in Asia.
The big question is enforcement, an issue that is being
debated in the United States and other countries and is
leading to increased calls for countries like Panama to
de-flag illegal tankers and for countries to clamp down
on dark-fleet ships anchored off their shores.
"My expectation is that governments, including the
United States, will take action against these dark
fleets, especially the facilitators and the [ship]
owners when they're identified," Vuksic told RFE/RL.
Other factors, including concerns about the impact of a
broader Middle East conflict potentially involving
Iran, could also hurt or help Iran's financial
standing.
As Kpler noted while reporting that Chinese imports of
Iranian oil had dropped significantly in October, the
changing global landscape can have a big effect on the
independent Shandong-base refineries that purchase
Iranian oil.
"Middle East tensions/threat of stricter enforcement of
U.S. sanctions may have turned Shandong refiners more
risk-adverse," the global trade intelligence firm wrote
in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
In the past week, supply fears also exposed the
volatility of global crude prices, potentially to
Iran's benefit.
Oil prices rose sharply on January 2 on news that Iran
had sent a frigate to the Red Sea and was rejecting
calls to end support for attacks by Tehran-backed Huthi
rebels that have disrupted shipping in the important
trade route.
Prices surged again following the deadly January 3
bombing attack in Iran, for which the Islamic State
militant group has claimed responsibility.
But the week ended with questions about the future of
Iran's cut-rate deal with the only country willing to
help prop up its economy, with Reuters reporting that
China's oil trade with Iran had stalled after Tehran
withheld supplies and demanded higher prices.
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Date: October 21, 2024 at 09:27:11
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: got it |
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you're criticizing any movement china is making towards building an economy
on 'green' energy because the country is still dependent on oil.
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[19283] |
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19283 |
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Date: October 23, 2024 at 08:34:57
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: got it? not hardly. But since you don't, here's a start. |
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No. You are glorifying a genocidal regime that is
destroying habitat building a road while supporting
Russia in an aggressive, murderous land grab flattening
a country, all for more oil.
So. Emphatically no. You don't get it.
Their paltry attempts to vary energy sources do not
make up for the near total destruction of the Pacific
in trawling the bottom, creating multiple and massive
dead zones and prohibiting locals from fishing their
own waters.
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Responses:
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