PetroChina Company Ltd. (PTR) has discovered solid gas flow at an onshore well in the east Sulige gas field, China. Daily output from this well is 610,000 cubic meters.

Discovered in 2000, the Sulige field has a projected 534 billion cubic meters of natural gas. It is located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, one of the most resource-rich areas in China, which produced 3.75 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2008.

China National Petroleum Corporation, the parent of PetroChina, had received a grant from the Government to start building a natural gas plant in Inner Mongolia in 2009, which will process the production from this field. The new plant is expected to be online by the end of 2010. The new gas plant will be the fourth one at the Sulige natural gas field in Inner Mongolia's Ordos basin.

Using its own technology, and in partnership with foreign companies

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PetroChina OKed to Buy Osaka Refinery Stake Earlier today, PetroChina Company Ltd. (PTR), the largest integrated oil company in China, gained approval from the country’s top economic policy planner -- the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) -- to invest in Nippon Oil Corporation’s Osaka refinery. NDRC said on its website that the agency had given the green light to the Chinese state-controlled energy giant's oil trading subsidiary PetroChina International to acquire a stake in the 115,000-barrels-per-day (Bbl/d) refinery in western Japan. Nippon Oil and PetroChina’s parent China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) finalized the deal earlier in the year to convert the Japanese refiner's wholly owned Osaka refinery into a 51:49 export-oriented joint venture, mainly targeting oil demand in China. The Osaka deal – which will be PetroChina's second overseas refinery transaction – would allow the company to take charge of all crude supply ...

With Exxon Mobil Corp.’s (XOM) new oil discovery off the coast of Brazil - the latest in a series of such offshore finds and potentially the largest Western Hemisphere discovery in three - the South American nation has taken another giant step in its quest to become a global energy superpower.

Exxon’s Azulao-1 well tapped a reservoir that reportedly contains as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, says Luiz Lemos, a partner at TozziniFreire Advogados, a Brazilian law firm that represents foreign energy companies.

“This is very huge,” Lemos told Bloomberg News.

So is the potential benefit for Brazil. If Lemos’ estimate is accurate, this new Azulao find will rival the nearby Tupi oil field as the largest discovery on this side of the planet since Mexico’s Cantarell field was discovered in 1976.

Lemos’ estimate is unconfirmed, but Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Rex

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China Development Bank, one of China’s largest state-owned enterprises, has agreed to lend $10 billion to Brazil’s Petrobras (PBR) in exchange for a long-term supply of oil - the latest illustration of how Beijing is using the global downturn to further its domestic agenda.

Money Morning first reported in January, that China was building stakes in some of the world’s largest natural-resource companies, which have been made vulnerable by depressed commodities prices, tumbling profits and falling stock prices. In the scant few weeks since that Money Morning report was published, Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. (ADR: ACH), or Chinalco, has invested $19.5 billion in Australian/British mining giant Rio Tinto PLC (ADR: RTP), and China Minmetals Corp. acquired Australian zinc miner Oz Minerals Ltd.

China Development Bank has

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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has insisted that Russia develop measures that will allow it to ‘actively influence’ the price of oil, as the New York Times reports that this week's Russian share drop is the result of lower oil prices. If Russia keeps to its new draft energy schedule, oil production will grow by 8-20% and natural gas by 42% by 2030. A $2.9 billion deal signed by China and Iraq will give the China National Petroleum Corporation a role in developing Iraq’s Al-Ahdab oil field. India’s ONGC has effectively sealed its takeover deal with Imperial Energy, clearing the second of two sets of regulatory Russian conditions, and the deal is expected to be completed in just over two months.

Maybe it's time to try something new. And maybe it's already starting.

Last week the New York Times reported:

In the first major oil deal Iraq has made with a foreign country since 2003, the Iraqi government and the China National Petroleum Corporation have signed a contract in Beijing that could be worth up to $3 billion, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

Under the new contract, which must still be approved by Iraq's cabinet, the Chinese company will provide technical advisers, oil workers and equipment to help develop the Ahdab oil field southeast of Baghdad, according to Assim Jihad, a spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry. If the deal is approved, work could begin on the oil field within a few months, Mr. Jihad said.

And today the Guardian confirms that the deal was approved by Iraq's cabinet.

There are some Americans who regard expanding Chinese global influence with fear and suspicion. But

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This proves how serious China is about securing access to the natural resources it needs to fuel it growth ambitions. The Iraqi government and the China National Petroleum Corporation have signed a contract that could be worth up to $3 billion.

As I’ve told you before, I believe the #1 rule for making money in the next decade is to get long whatever the Chinese are buying.

After all, China will need to consume an unprecedented amount of natural resources to fuel its red-hot economy and feed its 1.4 billion people. And in a moment, I’m going to give you four specific areas to target, and the company in each area that looks most like a takeover candidate.

But first, I want to tell you about …

Four Recent Chinese Deals
That Prove My Point!

In just the last week, we witnessed a flurry of deals that prove just how hungry China is for natural resources.

Deal #1: The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), which manages China’s $1.4 trillion foreign exchange reserves, bought …