The Daily Star in Lebanon offers a good background piece on China’s oil interests in Sudan.

Few countries can be watching the Darfur crisis in Sudan with more anxiety than China. At issue is its involvement in Sudan’s burgeoning oil sector. China’s investments there have become so important that Beijing might even feel inclined use its veto if the UN Security Council were at some point to recommend imposing sanctions on Khartoum.

Already, China is the largest importer of Sudanese oil and Beijing hopes to keep it this way. At present, imports from Sudan account for some 6 percent of China’s total. It will be surprising if this figure does not rise sharply over the next decade.

China, in general, has a large and growing thirst for oil. Rising Chinese demand is one of the major factors behind the current high price of oil on global markets. Beijing knows that it needs to take action urgently to cope with this new state of affairs.

The broader implications of China’s new energy strategy could be considerable. Huge investments of the kind needed for oil exploration and production involve risk assessment. That, in turn, means closely following political trends and, when necessary, seeking to influence them—a role that Beijing has not traditionally played in the Middle East. It also involves guessing what other major powers might be planning in terms of securing access to new reserves of oil, like those in Sudan, for example.

The Darfur affair is giving China its first close-up experience of a Middle East crisis. How it will react if the crisis deepens remains to be seen. Thus far it has shown its hand only in deciding to abstain when the Security Council voted last month to impose sanctions on Sudan if Khartoum does not take immediate and progressive steps towards ending the Darfur crisis.

India is another major oil player in Sudan, and Malaysia has interests there as well. You can find a good current (July 2004) backgrounder on oil in Sudan here (US DOE Energy Information Administration).

As energy needs rise and we approach peak production, contention for remaining resources will become increasingly intense—economically, if not militarily. For the countries (many underdeveloped) holding the reserves, the potential oil windfall could be a great boon if used properly. Internal allocation of oil revenue is a newer point of contention in the long-running civil strife in Sudan.

As an added factor in Sudan, the more rapidly the rate of production grows, the shorter the windfall will last. Looking at a few charts should make that last point more clear.

At the bottom left is a chart plotting the proven reserves by global region as known at the end of 2003. (Again, reserve estimation is a blend of science, politics and marketing, so “mileage may vary.”) To its right is a more detailed breakout of the reserves of the Middle East (gold bars) and Africa (green bars). (All data from BP Statistical Review of Energy 2004. Click to enlarge.)

As you can see in both, the Middle East reserves tower over everything else. In Sudan, even adding in expected additions to reserves, you’re looking at a situation that will tap out well before countries with larger endowments are depleted. Put another way, at the current rate of Sudanese production (approx. 300,000 barrels per day), it would take more than 30 Sudans to match the output of Saudi Arabia. Even doubling the current estimates of Sudanese reserves, it would take more than 250 Sudans to match the reserves of Saudi Arabia.