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China selling off Kenyan oil rights it got for free
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There was outrage among European oil exploration companies interested in Kenyan oil when it emerged that the stateowned National Oil Corporation of China - CNOOC - has quietly put out notices offering to farm out to third parties some of the oil exploration blocks granted to it by President Mwai Kibaki in April last year.
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In an unprecedented act of generosity, the government of Kenya gave the Chinese exclusive rights over a total of six out of 11 available blocks, including the hotly contested Blocks 9 and 10A in the Mandera area. Major European oil exploration companies have protested that they were unable to access Kenya even as the country emerges as the new frontier in the ferocious global battle between Europe and China for the world's oil resources.
So dominant has China become in the oil exploration scene in Kenya that CNOOC alone now controls 28 per cent of the total oil exploration acreage in Kenya.
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