China's ever-growing appetite for oil has brought it into America's own backyard in search of new energy resources, where it has pursued cooperation agreements with Canada and Venezuela -- the largest and fourth-largest suppliers to the US.
Canada, the largest supplier of oil to the US with 1.5 million barrels a day, recently became the country with the world's estimated second-largest oil reserves, not because new oil fields were discovered, but because soaring prices suddenly made Canada's "oil sands" an economically viable source.
Oil sands are deposits of bitumen, a viscous oil that must be heated or diluted before it begins to flow.
Extracting oil that can be used as gasoline from oil sands is difficult and more expensive than pumping it from the vast oil fields of the Middle East, but the higher prices have made oil sands a lucrative option.
In late 2003, oil production from the oil sands reached 1 million barrels per day, according to industry data.
China seized the opportunity and signed agreements with Canada that the countries would work on energy development together.
"Canada and China have decided to work together to promote cooperation in the oil and gas sector, including Canada's oil sands," a joint statement said. "In addition, China and Canada will encourage and push forward joint comprehensive research and study of oil sand technologies."
US Republican Senator Pete Domenici, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said "it is good" that the oil fields are being developed because it is a big addition to the world's oil reserves.
He did not indicate concern that China is trying to get a share of the oil-sands market.
But the ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Jeff Bingaman, said the US needs to "keep an eye on all uses of oil."
John Felmy, the chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, said the US "is going to have to work harder to get oil from other parts of the world," as other countries try to satisfy their energy needs and competition increases.
But Felmy also questioned whether China currently has the capacity to refine the heavier oil that Canada produces.
The same is true, he said, for heavy Venezuelan oil, but China and Venezuela have struck up an oil agreement regardless.
Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the US, with 1.35 million barrels a day, and President Hugo Chavez has made no secret that he would like to sell his oil elsewhere.
The agreements signed during Chavez's Christmas visit to China involve the intention to work together, especially in the Orinoco, where a heavy petroleum reservoir is located, and also building a plant to produce a fuel which substitutes for coal in electricity generation.
China has invested US$1.5 billion in the petroleum industry in Venezuela, Chinese officials have said.
In exchange, Chavez has proposed increasing petroleum sales for China's strategic reserves once a pipeline through Panama is ready, and to provide 120,000 tonnes of fuel oil for electricity generation starting in January.
Chavez also promised that Chinese firms would be granted licenses in 15 petroleum blocks where Chavez said there are proven reserves of 1 billion barrels, equal to Venezuela's annual production, Chinese officials said.
Felmy believes however that Chavez may have no other choice than to continue his exports to the US and smaller consumers in his own hemisphere. The great distance to China and the economics of shipping oil there make it difficult for China and Venezuela to move great volumes of petroleum.
There are "fundamental economics that are the reason" that Venezuela and the US, despite political differences, have a commercial relationship, Felmy said.
But Domenici said this relationship could come to an end.
"Just because right now we're buying oil from Venezuela doesn't mean that's where we're going to get oil for the next 25 years," he said.
What does seem certain is that China's demand for oil will grow with its economy, and to sustain that growth, the Asian giant will find ways to satisfy its energy demands.
A recent study by a US environmental think tank predicted that by 2031, if current growth continues, China will need 99 million barrels of oil a day. The world currently produces 79 million barrels per day and might not be able to produce much more than that, now or in the future.
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