Archive for August, 2023

Turkmenistan: Eurasia’s Transport Hub?

Via Modern Diplomacy, a look at Turkmenistan’s potential as Eurasia’s transportation hub: In May 2023, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan has announced the country’s readiness to launch an international transit corridor to Iran, Iraq and Turkey as part of the major East-West international transport corridor (ITC). According to the Turkmen leader, Turkmenistan, with its favorable […]

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China’s Africa Strategy: Shifting from Extraction to Investment

Via The Conversation, a look at how China’s Africa strategy is shifting from extraction to investment – driven from the industry-rich Hunan region: China experienced a massive economic boom in the 1990s and 2000s which increased its demand for resource imports, like oil, from Africa. This led to a model of development finance in which China funded infrastructure […]

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Afghanistan, an Energy Eldorado for China?

Via Modern Diplomacy, a report on China’s interest in Afghanistan’s energy resources: August 2021 was a key date for the Asian continent. That month was marked by the failure of the United States in Afghanistan, which, after 20 years of occupation and the fight against terrorism, had to leave the country in haste, leaving it […]

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BRICS Bloc Grows Heft With Saudi Arabia and Other Mideast Powers

Courtesy of Bloomberg, a report on BRICS expansion: Major emerging market nations invited top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates to join their bloc in a push to expand its global influence. Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa agreed to enlarge their BRICS group from Jan. 1 at a summit held in Johannesburg, […]

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What Risks Does the Southern Corridor Project Pose for Kazakhstan?

Via the Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting, an article on the risks that the Southern Corridor project poses to Kazakhstan: The Southern Transport Corridor should not be viewed as a threat by Kazakhstan, but rather be taken as a sign that it is necessary to strengthen Central Asian cooperation and create joint logistics projects […]

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Zimbabwe’s ‘White Gold’

Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a look at how Harare has Africa’s largest lithium reserves and Beijing is poised to benefit, despite an export ban: The world’s clean-energy transition will be impossible without African minerals—and a degree of resource nationalism from African countries is benefiting China, which has for decades invested in the African green-energy market […]

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ABOUT
WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.