Page 19: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Apr/May 2014)

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Analysis

Fig. 1: South China Sea oil and natural gas proved and probable reserves. Image: EIA.

and the Spratly Islands, but, rather, close to the coasts of the coastal countries far away from the disputed areas.

“You might ask, but what about undiscovered resources?

Sea of trade

What about these massive gas and energy resources hidden “The South China Sea is not the new Persian Gulf. in the disputed islands? Again, based on the best geologi- cal investigation from the US Geological Survey, we estimate

It should just be thought of as an important part there is not all that much potential for resources in these areas. of the supply picture of this region,” Alexander

We are talking reserves of maybe 100 Bcf of natural gas in the

Metelitsa, an economist at the US Energy

Spratly Islands, enough to power Hong Kong for a few days, and virtually no oil and gas reserves in the Paracel Islands. In terms

Information Administration (EIA), told delegates at of undiscovered resources, we are talking maybe a few billion

Meg Chesshyre

IP Week in London. listened in.

barrels of oil, maybe, maybe not, and maybe 100 Tcf of natural

Saudi Arabia he South China Sea has a lot of problems, a lot of “

Venezuela dif? culties with production, at the same time there is

T not actually all that much there in terms of meeting

Canada the Asian demand,” says EIA economist Alexander Metelitsa.

Iran

The EIA estimates that there are about 11 billion bbl of oil and

Russia 190 Tcf of natural gas in proven and probable reserves. The oil

Qatar is similar to the amount of oil in Mexico and the gas amounts to

Europe two-thirds of reserves in Europe, not including Russia (Fig. 2).

Oil

China

People also tend to think of the South China Sea in terms of

Natural gas

South territorial disputes, but this is not really a good way to look at

China Sea the broad energy supplies in the region. “When you look at the 0%5% 10% 15% 20% 25% map (Fig. 1), you see that the majority of proved and probable

Fig. 2: Share of world proved oil and gas reserves for select reserves are not in the contested regions of the Paracel Islands regions (2012). Image: EIA.

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