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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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