Oil explorer shrugs off dispute with Japan
By Wing-Gar Cheng Bloomberg News
MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2005
CNOOC, the third-largest oil company in China, has said that gas exploration in a disputed area of the East China Sea has not been disrupted by Japanese objections and by a decision to allow Japanese companies to drill there.
A complaint by Japan on April 1 that the Chunxiao and Duangqiao fields extend into its exclusive economic zone and an announcement 12 days later that Japanese companies can explore in the area are not affecting CNOOC, the chairman, Fu Chengyu, said Saturday during the Boao Forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
"The Japanese have said they want to cooperate in developing the fields," Fu said. "But that's their wish. So far, the Chinese are going ahead on their own."
China has called Japan's decision to allow drilling in the disputed area a "serious provocation," while Japan has repeatedly asked China to stop its drilling in the contested zone.
CNOOC, the largest offshore oil producer in China, expects to produce as much as one billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from the disputed Chunxiao field, Fu said on March 29.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Unocal in September withdrew from the Chinese-led project, which extends over about 22,000 square kilometers, or 8,500 square miles. The gas field itself covers 1,225 square kilometers and is in the 59,000-square-kilometer Xihu Trough area.
Teikoku Oil, the largest producer of natural gas from fields in Japan, and Japan Petroleum Exploration, the second-largest oil driller in Japan, applied for permission to develop the gas fields three decades ago.
The Japanese government will start procedures to grant drilling rights to Japanese companies in the area, the economic ministry said about a week and a half ago.
Japan may agree to joint drilling with China in a gas field in a disputed area in the East China Sea, the Japanese minister for economy, trade and industry, Shoichi Nakagawa, said on April 15.
Gas deliveries to start earlier
Australia will start delivering liquefied natural gas to an import terminal China is building in the southern province of Guangdong earlier than planned, Prime Minister John Howard said Saturday.
Liquefied natural gas deliveries will start in April 2006. Such a date would put the project "ahead of schedule," Howard said during the Boao Forum. Shipments to the plant had been expected to start in mid-2006.
CNOOC, the third-largest oil company in China, has said that gas exploration in a disputed area of the East China Sea has not been disrupted by Japanese objections and by a decision to allow Japanese companies to drill there.
A complaint by Japan on April 1 that the Chunxiao and Duangqiao fields extend into its exclusive economic zone and an announcement 12 days later that Japanese companies can explore in the area are not affecting CNOOC, the chairman, Fu Chengyu, said Saturday during the Boao Forum on the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
"The Japanese have said they want to cooperate in developing the fields," Fu said. "But that's their wish. So far, the Chinese are going ahead on their own."
China has called Japan's decision to allow drilling in the disputed area a "serious provocation," while Japan has repeatedly asked China to stop its drilling in the contested zone.
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