How the U.S. learned to stop worrying and love the Chinese oil behemoth

For the Chinese National Offshore Oil Co., otherwise known as CNOOC, the summer of 2005 must seem like ages ago. That’s when the entirety of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, the state of California and all good American patriots arose in unison and said no, a Chinese company could not buy the highly important strategic U.S. asset known as Unocal. So it was that Chevron swallowed Unocal, and CNOOC (pronounced Shnoss) and other Chinese companies went on to acquisitions elsewhere in the world.

Over the weekend, CNOOC closed a $1.1 billion deal to help finance Chesapeake Energy’s enormous gamble on shale oil and gas drilling, the big new rush in the energy industry. Specifically, the money will go for Chesapeake’s shale oil play called Eagle Ford, in south Texas.

Has anyone heard a peep from the anti-foreign investment crowd this time around? Not me.

So what has changed in five years? On first blush, one would imagine not a lot — if anything, the United States is more wary of Beijing, as evidenced by its pressure on China to allow the yuan to appreciate and make its exports more expensive.

But that’s a superficial reading. For one thing, there’s a restoration of some sanity to the market — Unocal wasn’t a strategic asset, and it wouldn’t have been a catastrophe for CNOOC to buy it. In addition, the question would be who isn’t buying into the shale bonanza — Norway’s Statoil, for example, made a $1.3 billion investment over the weekend in the very same field, in this case with Canada’s Talisman. India’s Reliance is in the Marcellus gas shale in Pennsylvania. The list goes on.

It’s embarrassing to be spurned. Congratulations to CNOOC. The suffering is over.