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Taiwan seeks more joint oil exploration with Chinese firm

Taiwan called yesterday for expansion in cooperation on oil exploration and development with China amid warming ties in the Taiwan Strait.

CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油), the nation’s state-run oil refiner, said it had proposed to work with China’s CNOOC Ltd (中國海洋石油) to explore possible oil reserves in the East China Sea.

“We have expressed the willingness to CNOOC to work together in the East China Sea,” CPC vice president Chu Shao-hua (朱少華) said.

“CPC is waiting for CNOOC’s response, hoping both sides will kick off talks on the proposal,” he said.

CPC and CNOOC set up a joint venture in 2002 to explore oil in the Tainan Basin of the Taiwan Strait.

The Tainan Basin cooperation, however, came to a halt in 2006 amid escalating cross-strait tension under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.

The Tainan Basin cooperation deal, which will expire in 2010, resumed after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) defeated the DPP in March presidential election.

Chu said CPC and CNOOC are looking for a location to drill a second well in the Tainan Basin after the first well failed to find anything.

Moreover, Chu said both sides are ready for talks to form a joint venture to explore in the Nanjih Islands Basin, also in the Taiwan Strait.

In 2002, the two companies agreed to survey in the Nanjih Basin but the agreement stalled as the then Taiwanese government opposed it.
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