"But we're allowing our market to be undermined by offshore producers in countries like Japan and South Korea that close their markets to our products".
Asia, at the other end of global supply chains that connect American companies to offshore producers, was hit hard by the end of the technology-driven boom.
"If our own federal government is also letting its taxes subsidize foreign corporations and offshore producers, it makes it harder to survive," said Philip E. Prichard, whose independent distillery in Tennessee makes rum and bourbon.
Significantly, the United States oil producers are prohibited by anti-trust law to collude with offshore producers to control markets and price so that even if they were able to organize themselves, they would be prohibited by law from joining or cooperating with an OPEC-like entity.
CNOOC is now Indonesia's largest offshore oil producer, following its $585m takeover in 2002 of Repsol's operations there.
Last year, BP signed a deal to explore off Brazil and sealed a partnership with Cnooc, the biggest offshore oil producer in China, for South China Sea licenses.
HONG KONG — China National Offshore Oil Corp., China's leading offshore oil producer, said Tuesday that its first-half net profit fell by almost a fifth, twice as much as the market had expected.
The S.E.C. had charged that Well Advantage relied on confidential inside information to buy shares in Nexen, an oil company based in Calgary, Alberta, just before Cnooc, the Chinese offshore oil producer, started a $15.1 billion takeover bid for the Canadian company.
That strategic shift is being carried out by the company's chairman, Fu Chengyu, who in his previous role as head of the offshore oil producer Cnooc mounted an unsuccessful bid in 2005 to acquire the American oil company Unocal.
