China opens door to US energy holdings

The country's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, which many feared would recycle its US treasury holdings into huge stakes in US companies, last week listed its US portfolio in a first-time filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For a $300 billion fund, China's not full of US love. Total holdings in US companies -- $9.6 billion, about one-third of 1% of the overall holdings.

The Chinese have purchased 200,000 shares of Oklahoma City's Chesapeake and 100,000 shares of Houston's Anadarko. The two companies are the only US gas and oil producers the Chinese fund has directly purchased.

They may still be smarting from state-owned oil company CNOOC's 2005 attempt to buy California-based gas and oil producer Unocal. Unocal was acquired by Chevron, but not until after Washington went into a tizzy, complete with congressional hearings, dire warnings from think tanks of all political stripes, even a warning from a California congresswoman named Nancy Pelosi that buying Unocal would give the Chinese access to technology that would enable super-secret nuclear tests (who knew?).

The 13-F holdings show an eclectic investment philosophy, with lots of holdings in sector funds including the S&P Global Energy fund ($107 million/3 million shares), the International Energy SPDR ($235 million/4.1 million shares) and the US Oil Fund, which bets long only on oil futures ($78.5 million/2 million shares).

Coupled with their sector bets are the brand names, a la Buffett: Coke, Visa, News Corp. (FOX), Apple Computers, United Healthcare.

The biggest investment holding, more than one-third of the portfolio, is actually headquartered in Canada (ouch!): mining company Teck Resources ($3.5 billion). Not mentioned is the pending $1.5 billion purchase of 20% of independent power producer AES of Arlington, Virginia.