An executive of the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) yesterday refuted media reports that the company will this week sign a formal contract with its mainland counterpart, China Na-tional Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油), to jointly explore oil and natural gas in the Taiwan Strait.
"[We] haven't confirmed when [both sides] will sign the contract for the joint exploration project," Chinese Petroleum President Pan Wen-yen (潘文炎) told reporters at the Legislative Yuan. "It is still in the preparation stage."
Earlier yesterday, several news media outlets reported that the contract for the joint venture between Chinese Petroleum and China National Offshore is scheduled to be signed on Thursday when China National Offshore President Wei Liu-cheng (衛留成) will arrive in Taipei.
The contract calls for the establishment of a joint venture, the Tainan-Chaoshan Petroleum Co (台南潮汕石油), which will register in the Virgin Islands with an initial capitalization of US$50,000. Chinese Petroleum and China National Offshore would each share 50 percent of the stake, and branch offices will be set up in Taipei and Shenzhen, respectively, within three months after the contract is forged, the reports said.
The project will include seismic testing and drilling in an area covering 15,400km2 in the Tainan basin between south Taiwan and China's Guangdong province, the reports said, citing an unnamed Chinese Petroleum official.
Under the contract, the new venture will prospect for oil in an area covering 15,400km2 near the median line of the Taiwan Strait and centered on a spot 21-23 degrees north latitude and 118 degrees east longitude.
Vice Chairman Lu Chi-cheng (呂桔誠) of the Commission of National Corporations last month said that the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council has green-lighted the cooperative venture.
But Pan said he has so far not heard anything from the Executive Yuan and he is not sure when and where both sides will sign the deal.
Initial geophysical studies under a two-year contract signed in July 1996 across the strait had indicated possible rich oil and natural gas reserves in the area.
But the cooperation was halted in late 1996 after Taiwan imposed new controls on investment and trade links with China as tensions rose over then Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui's (
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS