Com o rebentar da guerra de agressão contra o Irão, por parte de Israel e dos EUA, a região toda ficou envolvida no conflito, nomeadamente, além do Irão, as monarquias do Golfo Pérsico (incluindo a Arábia Saúdita) e gerou-se uma escassez súbita de petróleo e gás natural, afetando o mercado mundial. Pelo facto da China ser o maior importador mundial de petróleo e de 40% desse petróleo ser oriundo do Golfo Pérsico, poderia pensar-se que o estado atual de escassez iria afetar especialmente a China, nas suas mais diversas valências industriais e outras. Porém, a China preparou-se desde há muito tempo para situações deste tipo:
- Primeiro, construiu uma reserva de petróleo que corresponde - a pelo menos - 90 dias de consumo normal.
- Segundo, tem uma diversificação nas suas fontes de petróleo que poucos países têm; com efeito, uma importante e crescente percentagem do petróleo consumido pela China, vem da Sibéria, via oleoductos, portanto dum fornecimento regular, estável.
- A China foi um dos raríssimos países que continuou a abastecer-se de petróleo nos primeiros dias da guerra no Golfo, visto que os iranianos que controlam o estreito de Ormuz, lhes deram salvo-condutos para a navegação dos navios-tanques chineses.
- Mas, as coisas vão muito além da diversificação do abastecimento em petróleo: A China tornou-se o maior produtor (e exportador global) de paineis solares. Também desenvolveu a indústria das eólicas e tem uma rede instalada que é o triplo da do seu concorrente mais próximo, os EUA.
- Desenvolveu a energia nuclear para produção de energia e tem experimentado, no deserto de Gobi, com real sucesso, reactores a Tório. O Tório é um elemento mais abundante que o Urânio. Ao contrário do Urânio, o Tório pode ser reciclado no próprio processo de produção de energia; os reatores a Tório são quase auto-suficientes.
Abaixo, transcrevo passagens do artigo de Kevin Walmsley (de 25 de Março): «Após Três Semanas de Guerra no Golfo, a diversificação do setor energético da China mostra os seus frutos.»
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/the-china1-diversification-strategy
First, over half the vehicles sold in China today are electric vehicles, and that electricity is generated with domestic energy supplies.
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Further, the Chinese electric grid is powered by a far higher share of renewable energy than anywhere else. China installs more new solar capacity than the rest of the world combined, and just adding to their lead in solar power generation. They also dominate in wind power. Currently the United States leads in nuclear power plants online, but China has more nuclear plants under construction than the rest of the world combined:
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So as China has electrified their transportation networks, they’ve also built out an electric grid that’s fed by renewables and domestic sources of supply. China still does import three-fourths of its crude oil. But for the past several years China has been overbuying, and stashing surplus crude into storage tanks.
They don’t publicly disclose their stockpiles of crude—our analysts are guessing at the import numbers because they’re not really sure what comes across from Russia, or on tankers that are under sanction. So they are also just guessing how much is going into stockpiles, but industry insiders put the number at around 1.3 billion barrels. Remember, too, that there still is oil flowing from Iran to China, despite the war. So compared to the other countries in Asia, China is the least impacted by the war in the Middle East.
South Korea is capping prices, which won’t do anything. Pakistan is increasing gas prices by 20 percent for car drivers to free up supplies for trucks and buses, even though wholesale gas prices are up much more than 20 percent. In Vietnam, gas stations are already running out, and the government there says they have oil for another month or so and are telling their populations not to hoard fuel.
The Philippines gets 90% of its oil from the Middle East, and government workers there are working 4 days a week. Bangladesh is rationing fuel and closing universities to save electricity. In India, the crematoriums can’t get enough LPG to burn bodies, so they had to close down.
These are the countries who sold themselves as viable manufacturing centers, to global companies looking to de-risk from China. Thousands of companies attempted a “China+1” strategy, and moved some production out of China to these neighboring countries to reduce geopolitical risk, just traded one problem for a bunch more.
The idea was that diversifying production away from China means a reduction in risk, and somehow a stronger supply chain. But that was an illusion. These countries are dependent on the smooth flow of fossil fuels from the Middle East, at low prices, to run their power plants and transportation systems.
That’s gone, and today those factories are paying a lot more to keep the lights on, and get their people back and forth from home.
