Venezuela kicks out Exxon and attempts to rob them. China inks major agreements with Exxon. Hugo says..."Exxon bad....China good". Exxon = winner China = winner Venezuela = loser. Perhaps Hugo has Asian relatives. That would explain his middle name...."Onedumfuk". And we wonder why the Russians insisted on "fair market value" in the International Arbitration recourse clause of their contract.

Exxon, China ink $41 billion Australian gas deal
Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:36am EDT
By Fayen Wong and Chris Buckley

PERTH/BEIJING (Reuters) – Australia and China struck their biggest trade deal ever on Tuesday as the world’s two most valuable listed oil companies, Exxon Mobil and PetroChina, agreed a $41 billion liquefied natural gas deal.

"It’s a statement about the nature of our two economies and the fact that Australia is important to China, just like China is important to Australia," Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson told Reuters in Beijing.

The gas sale agreement between Exxon and PetroChina comes just weeks after Exxon inked a A$10 billion Gorgon LNG sales deal with India’s Petronet, which marked Australia’s first ever LNG contract with India.

The deals, along with regulatory approvals process from the federal government now nearing completion, means that the Gorgon project partners could approve the massive LNG project, located off Western Australia, by early as next month.

The latest Gorgon gas sale would bring PetroChina’s total LNG purchase from the project to a total of 3.25 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) for 20 years — making it the largest buyer of gas from the project.

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