China rig finds gas after Vietnam sea standoff

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/09/16/3381989/china-rig-finds-gas-after-vietnam.html?sp=/99/261/

China rig finds gas after Vietnam sea standoff
By IAN MADER
Associated Press
September 16, 2014 Updated 11 minutes ago

BEIJING — The Chinese exploration rig at the center of a tense maritime standoff with Vietnam earlier this year has made its first deep sea gas discovery in the politically volatile South China Sea, state media announced Tuesday.

The discovery by China National Offshore Oil Corp. was made about a month after its rig withdrew in July from Vietnam's exclusive economic zone to far less-contested waters closer to China.

The find by CNOOC's two-year-old, $1 billion deep sea rig is about 150 kilometers south of China's southernmost island of Hainan. It's unclear whether the discovery will become commercially viable, but the announcement represents a significant step in China's ability to seek resources beneath the South China Sea.

Petroleum reserves and fisheries are among the resources at stake in disputes over the sea, which is one of the world's busiest shipping routes and a patchwork of overlapping claims by governments including China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. China claims virtually all of the South China Sea.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Do you know what's scarier than First World Nations drilling offshore, in deep waters?

Just shoot me now.