A four billion dollar agreement is anticipated today during President Hu Jintao's visit. Chinese firms already sell products and are setting up firms there.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) China is set to establish infrastructures in Nigeria in exchange for oil.
This is the main aim of a two-day visit by President Hu Jintao, who touched down in Abuja airport yesterday, where he was welcomed by President Olusegun Obasanjo. The trip includes Hu's speech to Parliament today, about "Working Together to Forge a New Type of China-Africa Strategic Partnership", after which he will go to Kenya.
Tony Chukwueke, director of the Petroleum Resources Department, said under the agreement, the fruit of months of work, China will buy a controlling stake in the state-owned Kaduna oil refinery that produces 110,000 barrels of crude per day and build a railroad system and power station.
China will set up infrastructures worth four billion US dollars. In exchange, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation got first refusal rights on four oil exploration blocks, two in the Niger Delta and two in the unexploited Chad Lake zone. China is ever more in need of oil for its economic development while Nigeria, Africa's most populated country and among the poorest in the world, needs to build infrastructure. Since 2005, it has preferred Asian investors because they offer to build services in exchange for extraction rights. China already invests in the local telephone industry and sells textiles and other products. Many Chinese firms have set up firms in the country. Even Japan and South Korea are dealing with Nigeria.
Last week, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation bought a 45% stake, worth 2.7 billion US dollars, in an oil field. Production in expected to start in 2008. In 2005, Nigeria reached an agreement worth 800 million dollars with PetroChina for the sale of 30,000 barrels of crude per day.
The trip of President Hu Jintao in Africa and the Middle East is according to observers an opportunity to strengthen ties with oil-producing countries. In 2004, China clinched oil agreements with Gabon and it is the main market for Sudan's oil. And it has agreed to inject two billion dollars into Angola in exchange for oil concessions to Chinese firms.