Chinese expert: Joint oil exploration solution to sea row

HAIKOU, Hainan – The proposed joint exploration of the West Philippine Sea may resolve the growing territorial dispute between the Philippines and China.

Wu Shicun, a top South China Sea expert, said the joint exploration of the Reed Bank also known as Recto Bank, could start the peaceful resolution to the conflict between the two countries regarding the sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea.

“Jointly, I think that’s the best way,” Wu said during a brief discussions here with a 15-member Philippine media delegation invited by the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

Wu, however, regarded that the sharing agreements need to be reached among possible business partners in the joint oil explorations as “it’s a business deal.”

He said the joint exploration agreements “should be discussed by the oil companies – China National Offshore Oil Co. Ltd (CNOOC) and the Philippine oil companies.”

“The only way for Chinese business is to go for joint exploration, either 50-50 or whatever,” he said, even pointing out the need for the Philippine media to convey the idea to Filipino businessmen.

It can be recalled that the Philippines’ Philex Petroleum Corp. through its chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan had “sent feelers” to its Chinese partner for the resumption of the joint exploration of the Service Contract 72.

Philex Petroleum is spending $60 million to $70 million to drill two appraisal wells in the SC 72.

Pangilinan had told business reporters in Manila that Philex Petroleum may start drilling in the first quarter of 2016 since it may take about six to 12 months to prepare for it.

Forum Energy, which is 60.45 percent owned by Philex Petroleum, operates the petroleum block located in offshore Palawan. It had been in talks with CNOOC for a possible joint exploration of SC 72 but the ongoing territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea has been a major hindrance to developing the area.

The Sampaguita field, which is covered by SC 72 in the Reed Bank, is estimated to have gross reserves of over 11 trillion cubic feet of gas, an independent study commissioned by Forum Energy earlier showed.

The volume dwarfs the Malampaya natural gas field's reserves, which is placed at 2.7 trillion cubic feet, and could supply the Philippines' gas requirements for up to a hundred years.