via The Wall Street Journal...
China - As a "scout" for IHS Inc., a U.S. petroleum industry research firm, geologist Xue Feng won plaudits from his managers for obtaining a trove of rare data on 30,000 Chinese oil wells.
China's oil industry was undergoing a tumultuous period as Xue Feng, a Shaanxi province-born, naturalized American geologist, began his career as a "scout" for Colorado-based IHS Inc., and ultimately was convicted in Beijing for stealing Chinese national secrets.
IHS databases are populated with such information about every country in the world. The data help oil companies decide where to explore and give traders a sense of energy price trends. Among subscribers to the IHS databases are Chinese oil companies that drill in Africa and buy natural gas from Australia.
But more than two years after Mr. Xue's scoop in 2005, China declared the data on its fields state secrets. Now, the 45-year-old U.S. citizen is in a Beijing jail serving an eight-year sentence following a conviction this summer for spying. U.S. President Barack Obama and Washington's Ambassador to Beijing, Jon Huntsman, have called on China to release him. (more)
China's oil industry was undergoing a tumultuous period as Xue Feng, a Shaanxi province-born, naturalized American geologist, began his career as a "scout" for Colorado-based IHS Inc., and ultimately was convicted in Beijing for stealing Chinese national secrets.
IHS databases are populated with such information about every country in the world. The data help oil companies decide where to explore and give traders a sense of energy price trends. Among subscribers to the IHS databases are Chinese oil companies that drill in Africa and buy natural gas from Australia.
But more than two years after Mr. Xue's scoop in 2005, China declared the data on its fields state secrets. Now, the 45-year-old U.S. citizen is in a Beijing jail serving an eight-year sentence following a conviction this summer for spying. U.S. President Barack Obama and Washington's Ambassador to Beijing, Jon Huntsman, have called on China to release him. (more)
