President Aquino is open to the idea of a Chinese company joining an oil and gas exploration in Recto Bank in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) but says it has to comply with Philippine laws.
The Philippines is taking with caution Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing’s declaration of Beijing’s openness to a joint exploration for oil and gas in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), a position more recently reiterated by China’s foreign ministry to show its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the maritime dispute embroiling both countries.
The Philippines and China may forge ahead with the joint exploration of oil and gas reserves in the West Philippine Sea, which the latter calls the South China Sea, even as their leaders continue to squabble over boundaries.
The body recovered in the waters near an oil platform that caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico belonged to one of two missing Filipino workers, the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., confirmed Sunday.
At least nine Filipinos were reported injured while two others were missing after a fire broke out on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC said on Saturday (Sunday in Manila).
Vietnam has denounced China’s opening of offshore oil blocks to foreign companies in contested areas of the South China Sea as “illegal”, as territorial tensions grow between the communist neighbors.
President Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday said the Philippines would defend its right over Recto Bank, where natural gas was discovered recently, as he disclosed other gas finds within the country’s territory.
It started like many other minor confrontations over the specks of isles dotting some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. But the risks in the latest flare-up over a South China Sea shoal are much bigger than the territory itself.
China has claimed new territory less than 80 kilometers from Palawan province, boosting tensions over the potentially resource-rich region, but the Philippines has dismissed the claim, an official said on Monday.
President Benigno Aquino said here Friday that gas deposits in an area of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) that is being claimed by the Philippines, China and several other countries were so enormous that they dwarf the Malampaya gas and oil fields.
New York-based Filipino American civic leader Loida Nicolas Lewis met with the Federal Reserve chief of the United States to express her group’s opposition to the planned purchase of the Bank of East Asia (BEA) by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which plans to drill oil in the disputed Spratly Islands.
Using uncharacteristic forceful language for a diplomat, Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario trashed China’s claim over the entire West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) area, calling it “baseless” and a “potential threat” to navigation in the region at the opening of Asia’s biggest security conference in the Indonesian resort island of Bali Saturday. China’s aggressive [...]
