Why China has its eye on Canada's oil patch

…It’s being driven by two or three outlooks on behalf of the Chinese. The first, and most obvious, is energy security. On a comparative basis, relative to the size of their economy, they are not blessed with that many natural resources themselves, so they want to get access themselves to the physical barrels, if possible.

The second thing, which drives the importance to the Chinese, is their own view that the industry is running short of natural resources and so it would be a good long-term investment, in and of itself.

The third thing that is really driving the importance of the Chinese market is the fact that that they’ve got the money They can finance these deals and, particularly in today’s marketplace where raising capital is more difficult than it was a year ago, this ends up being a critical factor in deciding if you’re a seller that we want to do business with.

Globe and Mail