Japan says China checking disputed oil production

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Tokyo, Aug 5: Japan is checking whether China has started production at a disputed gas field in the East China Sea that Tokyo says may extend into its territory, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on Saturday.

The stated-owned parent of China's CNOOC Ltd. said on its Web site on Friday that the firm had begun production at the Chunxiao field in the East China Sea.

''We are in the middle of checking whether production has actually started there,'' a Japanese Foreign Ministry official told Reuters. ''We have no option but to tell them to stop if they have already started.'' On a visit to the drilling station at the gas field, where test extraction of gas began earlier this year, a top official said production had started and called on CNOOC to ensure a market for the fuel.

''The Chunxiao oil and gas field first state has already fully entered the production phase,'' Zhang Guobao, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, was quoted saying in a report posted on CNOOC's Web site, www.cnooc.com.cn, on Friday.

''But the lack of downstream users for the gas is limiting the speed of development,'' he added.

Japan's Nihon Keizai business daily on Saturday quoted a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official as saying that Tokyo had started to consider counter-measures.

The official was quoted as saying that Japan would try to settle the dispute with dialogue and call for senior-level talks with Beijing.

But if China refused to hold talks and moved ahead with production at the gas field Japan could start test-drilling in the disputed area, the official was quoted as saying.

Japan says the field is too close to its exclusive economic zone and fears China may tap into geological structures that stretch into that area.

But the two countries disagree on where the maritime boundary between them lies, and Beijing says its activities in the East China Sea are within its sovereign rights.

Japan, concerned it may be left behind, has granted test drilling rights to Teikoku Oil Co., bought last year by rival INPEX Corp.

, to explore for gas in the disputed waters, although drilling has not started.

Sino-Japanese relations have chilled markedly since Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in 2001 and began annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which critics at home and abroad view as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Reuters

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