puff April 28

April 28 Thursday
Te ao toi
Kaupapa o te ra
Tanemahuta Gray
Rangahau
He korero mo Tanemahuta Gray me tana koha kit e Ao Toi.
Subject of the day
Tanemahuta Gray
Analysis
A discussion of Tanemahuta gray and his contribution to the world of the arts.
www.wicked.org.nz/r/wick_ed/cool/archives/tanemahuta.php
Environment Aotearoa 15
Chinese Banks and Petrobas
Last week an attempt was made in this column to look at the big picture of the exploration for oil in the Raukumara area by Petrobas. Today’s Post concentrates on the international aspects of Petrobas itself and searches for international analogies to this exploration.
The exploration is being done in international waters. There are issues regarding the boarding of boats by New Zealand forces like the Police and the Navy if those boats are sailing under the flags of other nations.
The flags themselves need to be analysed. In the case of Petrobas the registration of the company is done in Brazil, the company’s country of origin. But who owns Petrobas? Bloomberg reports a several large loans by Chinese banks to the company.
Is Petrobas a Chinese front? There may be an analogy with what is going on in Australia where the Chinese seem to be using Australia as their own resource farm.
In these cases the Chinese concerns run such things as open cast mines on the ground in Australia and control the resource from point of origin through production to sales and consumption. The BBC’s Hardtalk programme has recently featured this.
What is the extent of the Chinese need for petroleum resources? If they ‘own’ outfits like Petrobas- if the Chinese banks own the debts of Petrobas- how much pressure is Petrobas going to be under in this exploration exercise?
One sobering feature of al, this is the extent of the exposure by Petrobas to Chinese banks. This exposure is, as reported by Bloomberg, reckoned in billions.
The scale of all this is hard to comprehend. New Zealand is, by comparison, a small player. Te Whanau a Apanui and China? What are we getting into here?