China to swoop on Iran oil field if Tokyo pulls support: firms

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20050818a1.htm

On the brink of tapping into one of the world's largest known oil reserves, Japanese companies are fretting over the possibility of further rivalry with China.

Mining rights to Iran's vast Azadegan oil field, secured in February 2004, are the fruit of three years of hard negotiations.

But executives at Inpex Corp. of Japan say they're nervous the Japanese government might pull out its political support for the Azadegan development project in the face of potential pressure from the United States, which has taken a hard stance against Tehran due to suspicions over its nuclear program.

"If (political backing) for the project ebbs during its first phase, China could get the drilling data and glide into the second phase without doing any of the initial grunt work," said one executive at Inpex, which leads the consortium of Japanese firms preparing to drill for oil in Azadegan.

[Turbineguy]

1. Well, we can predict

with some confidence how that will turn out....

[Greeby]

2. China owns all our asses

It's just a matter of when they cash in

[H5N1]

3. Why would the US hand this to China?

[atreides1]

4. Why Not

Since Bush has been in office arrogance not diplomacy has been the name of the game.

To show how much power that Washington has over its "allies" BushCo would force its Japanese puppet to pull out of this deal, with the "promise" that the US would cover any monetary losses.