Ethical analysis of the activities of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in Sudan

Résumé du document

The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is a Chinese state-owned fuel-producing corporation. It is China's largest integrated oil and gas company. As of 2006, it was the second largest company in the world in terms of number of employees. CNPC holds proved to be equivalent of reserves of 3.7 billion barrels of oil. CNPC spun off most of its domestic assets into a separate company called PetroChina, during a restructuring exercise. CNPC has 30 international exploration and production projects with operations in Azerbaijan, Canada, Indonesia, Myanmar, Oman, Peru, Sudan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. It also made the successful historic acquisition of PetroKazakhstan (US$4.18 billion) on October 26th, 2005. CNPC has been present in Sudan since 1996 and now has oil and gas assets and interests in the country, while also providing oilfield services.

Extraits

[...] For example, while the US and Europe have either imposed or considered imposing sanctions on Sudan, China poured an estimated $15 billion into Sudan (One third of it given by the CNPC). The CNPC has indeed participated in financing the war in Darfur to increase its personal interests and benefits. Sudan benefits from China involvement notably by the large investments in Khartoum, but also by the veto-power of China in the Security Council, which when it comes to proposal of sanction to Khartoum, is really helpful. [...]

[...] On the other hand we are involved in really bad things and this could impact us soon or later and have tragic consequences on ourselves and on the company. On the other side, implementing what we are going to call, the “ethical solution” here will be really costly, even if we focus more on other regions, and several partners could abandon us, same for the customers and the shareholders. This could bring the company to bankrupt. But we will beneficiate of a better image and our future will have no obstacle in front of it in case of growth after the depression period. [...]

[...] only does PetroChina have significant influence with CNPC, but the Sudan Divestment Task Force firmly believes that it is legitimate to target PetroChina for CNPC's Sudan operations for four key reasons” dark side of the company below) Their role, in this case is to push the company to invest successfully in Sudan in order to get the most money possible out of it. They are responsible for the strategic actions taken by CNPC in Sudan. Potential impact of the moral challenge on key stakeholders Supposing that they are aware of the situation, this could be an important weight for 14 Business Ethics Page 15 of 24 their conscience, depending on their human nature. Maybe it is not. It is possible that it impacts the eye of their entourage on them in a negative way. [...]

[...] On the executives, that means a lot works to implement the responses. And for the board and the managers that means a lot of talking and thinking to implement a new sustainable strategy and to motivate everybody (employees, investors, partners, etc.) Technique to evaluate and monitored outcomes of this decision Measures will have to be taken before the solution is implemented and after in order to compare the results and see the effects of this decision on productivity, revenues, image, notoriety, etc. [...]

[...] But the legitimacy of China National Petroleum Corporation will constitute our key issue here. From the company point of view, the key issue is: should we continue or should we stop those unethical activities? 11 Page 12 of 24 Key issue as a moral challenge I consider this issue a moral challenge because we are talking about the price of human life, which is absurd. This issue is clearly a moral issue. It represents how bad a company can act (or close its eyes on) in order to be richer; or, how far a country is ready to go in order to fulfil its objectives. [...]