Mikkal Herberg Comments on the Risks of China's Deepwater Drilling
China Seeks to Stall Vietnam Oil
07/09/2012
Michael Lelyveld,
Radio Free Asia
China is unlikely to derive any commercial value from the oil and gas fields it has claimed near the coast of Vietnam, experts say.
Even if it could enforce its claims within Vietnam's 200-mile (320-kilometer) offshore zone and lure foreign companies into development, China would find it hard to launch production in more distant disputed areas of the South China Sea.
"It's one thing to explore far away from your own shores in disputed territory. It's quite another thing to produce from that area," said Edward Chow, senior fellow in the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"To actually produce, you're placing billions of dollars' worth of assets out at sea very far away from you, drilling a number of production wells. How do you protect that?" Chow said.
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Mikkal Herberg is a senior lecturer on international and Asian energy at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. He is also the BP Foundation Senior Research Fellow for International Energy at the Pacific Council on International Policy and also serves as research director on Asian energy security at The National Bureau of Asian Research.
