Offshore staff

SINGAPORE -- A senior ConocoPhillips executive has called on independent oil companies to help identify the hydrocarbon potential of dispute areas in the Asia/Pacific region, most of which lie in some of the area's prolific petroleum basins.

The oil companies have a role to identify these dispute resources and to highlight their importance to the economies and the employment opportunities that would emerging in developing the reserves, said William G. Lafferrandre, manager for regional business development at the Kuala Lumpur-based Conoco Asia Pacific Sdn. Bhd.

Lafferrandre cautioned that the commercially-driven corporations should not get involved in settling the dispute, which are best dealt with on government to government levels.

Speaking at the Asia Upstream 2007 conference, held Feb. 6-7 in Singapore, Lafferrandre said some progress has been made to resolve the issues of disputed territory. He pointed to the fact that national oil companies from China, the Philippines, and Vietnam have shot another seismic survey over the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea. The islands are claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

According to Lafferrandre, the potential of the reserves need to be known before the countries can resolve their differences. Most of the areas in dispute are petroleum and mineral resource basins straddling common sea boundaries.

According to industry observers, 2D seismic surveys indicate that billions of barrels lie in some of these areas. An intensified 3D survey could give a better estimate of the potential.

Areas under dispute include the sea boundary and the overlapping hydrocarbon basins between Cambodia and Thailand in the Gulf of Thailand, Brunei and Malaysia in the South China Sea, Indonesia and Malaysia around the Sulu archipelago, acreage in water between Taiwan and China, and between China and Japan.

The common sea boundary territory between Australia and Timor Leste is still not resolved, which has left development of the huge Sunrise field pending.

Among the resolved territories are the Malaysian Thailand Joint Development Area in the Gulf of Thailand and the Commercial Arrangement Area between Malaysia and Vietnam in the South China Sea.

2/7/2007