—A Report of “Haiyangshiyou 981” Exploiting Oil and Gas Resource on the South China Sea In May 2014, close by the Paracel Islands, there was standing a 43-layer-high “colossus”, making great noise, that spread out quite a few sea miles. The noise maker is the 3000 m deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig —“Haiyangshiyou 981”， which is now under exploitation work in the South China Sea. It has spent 2 years on the South China Sea since it started her drilling on May 9th, 2012. It has become the focus of the world’s attention now. In early May this year, China Maritime Safety Administration revealed the detailed location of “Haiyangshiyou 981” for warning the vessels sailing around. However, Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the area that “Haiyangshiyou 981” is exploiting belongs to “Vietnam Exclusive Economic Zone”. Later on, Vietnamese ships started interfering with the exploitation work of “Haiyangshiyou 981” and demanded it to withdraw from the mentioned area. However, as the spokesman of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the Paracel Islands is China’s inherent territory, and China has the rightful and legal rights to exploit oil and gas resources at her own sea area. It was stated that China will not cease exploiting work because of any interference of Vietnam ships. From that moment, “Haiyangshiyou 981” is no longer a normal drilling rig, which is a symbol that safeguards China’s marine rights and interests, representing the confidence and resolution of strengthening national marine power. “Haiyangshiyou 981” is now truly the “Floating Homeland” on the South China Sea. Origin: it is imperative to develop resources in the South China Sea 21st century is ocean’s century. Ocean not only has abundant resources but also has important political, economic, and military strategic status. It is a core carrier for most of coastal countries to expand the economy and the social development space. Many countries have valued marine issues to a national level, making marine development strategy and supporting policies. Currently, oil and gas on land is shorting in a worldwide scale. International energy situation is changing, as a result, each nation wants to develop and strive for marine resources more than ever. The 18th CPC National Congress points out the strategy of building marine power not only guides the way of developing marine economy, but also brings new opportunities to the exploitation of marine resources. China is a big marine country, and has 3 million square meters sea area under national jurisdiction. Among it, as an important waters under China jurisdiction, there has a great amount of oil and gas resource in the South China Sea. It is estimated that there are 23 to 30 billion tons of petrol resource, and 16 trillion square meters of natural gas under the South China Sea basin, accounting for one third of overall national resources. It has a reputation of “the second Persian Gulf” with 70% of the resource is under the 1.537 million square meters of deep sea area. At the same time, China is a big energy importing country, the demand of oil and gas is still increasing. Experts revel that in future years, with the rapid development of economy, our demand for oil and gas resources will continue to grow. In order to deal with China’s “shortage of oil and gas”, it is imperative to develop the resources in the South China Sea. In fact, some neighboring countries have been staring at the resource in the South China Sea for a long time. The Philippines was the first one in South Asia to take action on the South China Sea. In 1976, the Philippines externally invited biding for oil and gas exploitation under the South China Sea, and it attracted the USA, France, Italy, Japan and other countries came for it. Among the Philippines exploitation territory, it has entered China’s exclusive economy zone. According to the statistics, each year the Philippines exploit 3.5 million barrels of oil and 30 million cubic meters of gas, among a great deal of which is under China’s Spratly Islands. In addition, Vietnam in 1986 drilled the first oil well and then went wild. When entering the 21st century, Vietnam kept developing new areas, and invited biddings in a broader range and from a larger scale of global bids, taking advantage of the vague area of “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea”. The biding area rarely involves its own controlling territory, but most on “disputed, common developing” non-controlling area, and touched in the oil fields in the South China Sea for many times. Experts point out that no matter from the perspective of China’s internal oil and gas demand or from the viewpoint of safeguarding China’s marine rights and interests, China should accelerate its steps to exploit oil and gas resource in the South China Sea Journey: China’s enterprises dare to show their blades In order to intensify the exploitation of oil and gas in the South China Sea, to meet the demand of internal market, and to ensure national energy security, CNOOC officially initiated the project of “Haiyangshiyou 981”, which is a 3000 m deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig, in October 2006. On October 18th 2007, SWS, who is a subsidiary of CSSC, won the bid of constructing “Haiyangshiyou 981” project. After 3 years careful construction, “Haiyangshiyou 981” was delivered and named in Shanghai on May 23rd, 2011. On May 9th 2012, “Haiyangshiyou 981” started her first drilling on the South China Sea. Her successful delivery and drilling, filled in the blank of lacking large deepwater drilling equipment, and is a milestone in China’s shipbuilding and offshore industry, marking that China’s ability of exploiting gas and oil under deep water has stepped into world leading ranks. It also has the meaning that China has enhanced her rights to speak on exploitation in surrounding sea areas, realizing national energy strategic goals and safeguarding national marine rights and interests. Six billion yuan was invested in the project of “Haiyangshiyou 981”, which is the “flagship” product CNOOC has been developing. The core technologies associated with design and construction were enlisted into the national “11th five years development” goals and “863” major science and technology programs with its own intellectual property. That rig is considered as the “aircraft carrier” in offshore products with the weight over 31K tons. The dock area is equivalent to a standard football court. It has the height of 137.8 m from the bottom to drilling frame, as high as a 43-layer building. The length of cable is over 900 km, and it maximum operating water depth is 3,050 m, maximum drilling depth is 12,000 m. The overall rig stability and structure intensity design were under the consideration of the worst sea condition on the South China Sea once occur in 200 years. In order to resist typhoon and complex sea currencies, the rig is equipped the most advanced DP3 system, a semi-drilling system, and an advanced GPS to ensure its all day work. Since the naming and delivery in April 2008, SWS who was responsible for engineering, procurement, construction, testing and commissioning, has spent a great effort on establishing teams, scientific management, technologies breakthrough and others. Finally, this offshore “aircraft carrier” was presented to the public. The successful construction of the rig marks SWS has transformed from FPSO fabricator to the EPC contractor of deepwater drilling equipment. SWS has taken a great step forward to China’s leading and world first-class offshore contractor. Now, on the South China Sea, this offshore “aircraft carrier” as a “giant” supports CNOOC and plays an important role in safeguarding national maritime rights and interests. Evidence: It is reasonable and legal to exploit in the area of Paracel Islands On May 2nd, China Maritime Safety Administration announced a sailing warning, saying that “Haiyangshiyou 981” was exploiting in the specified area of Paracel Islands, within the range of one sea mile radius of which unrelated vessels are prohibited from entering. On May 4th, China Maritime Safety Administration declared the radius of restricted area was increased to three sea miles. However, the spokesman of Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “Haiyangshiyou 981” has entered “Vietnam’s exclusive economy zone”. Later, a few Vietnamese ships surrounded and attacked “Haiyangshiyou 981”, interfering with its drilling operations and demanding it to leave. In response to that, the spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs points out that the exploitation zone is close to the Paracel Islands, 17 sea miles from China’s Zhongjian Island and 150 sea miles away from the Vietnamese Coast. The Vietnam’s interference towards China’s legal and reasonable drilling operations is regarded as implausible. A great deal of historical evidence shows that the Paracel Islands are China’s inherent territory since ancient time. It was first discovered, first named, first developed, and first administered and was exercised right by Chinese. It was as early as the 2nd century B.C, which was the Han dynasty, that Chinese had already sailed on the South China Sea and discovered the Paracel Islands. Later, Chinese started to operate and start business on it. It is also evidenced that Chinese was engaged in fishing activities on the Paracel Islands in early China’s Tang and Song dynasties. In North Song dynasty, the navy had cruised to the Paracel Islands. That means the Paracel Islands was under China’s jurisdiction at then. In addition, a famous astronomer Guo Shoujing in Yuan dynasty set an observatory on the Paracel Islands also proves that the Paracel Islands was under China’s jurisdiction. Before the mid-70s in last century, Vietnam publicly and officially admitted that the Paracel Islands was under China’s jurisdiction. In 1956, the principal of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs clearly expressed the viewpoint that the Paracel Islands was under China’s jurisdiction to the temporary Chinese embassy in Vietnam. In 1958, Chinese government announces that the territorial waters of the P.R China were broadened to 12 sea miles, specifying that this regulation applies to any homeland of the P.R China including the Paracel Islands. 10 days after the announcement, the prime minister of Vietnam Fan Wentong on the meeting with Zhou Enlai, the prime minister of China expressed that Vietnam government admitted and respected the statement that P.C China made regarding the decision on territorial waters. For a long time, Vietnamese official documents, text books and maps clearly show that the Paracel Islands is under China’s jurisdiction. The spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that after 1975, Vietnam broke the promise they made and demanded sovereignty towards the Paracel Islands. The recent speeches Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs made again proves that this country distorts history, denies facts, contradicted itself betrayed on others, and all of those indicate that its credit on international society is rather low. The 18th CPC National Congress points out we are needed to improve the ability of developing marine resource, to develop marine economy, to safeguard national marine rights and interests and build a strong marine country. As a major force of developing oil and gas resource in the South China Sea, “Haiyangshiyou 981” is playing a role of “pioneering”. As the chairman of CNOOC Wang Yilin said, large deepwater facility is “floating homeland”, and it is a “sharp tool” to promote offshore oil industry. We have reasons to believe that our maritime rights and interest could be better protected and our dream of building a strong maritime country will soon be achieved by constructing more and more “floating homeland” or “sharp tools” like “Haiyangshiyou 981”. (Reporter Wang zhihui from China Ship News) Front page Commentary Strive to be “pioneers” to safeguard marine rights and interests Reporter Wang zhihui Recently, the relationship between Vietnam and China is becoming more and more intense. The focused argument from both sides is about the drilling area of the 3000 meter deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig “Haiyangshiyou 981”. Leaving the unreasonable speeches made by Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs aside, we could see that “Haiyangshiyou 981” plays a considerably important role on this matter. Chinese people have the competence to inject more positive energy into building a strong marine country, to provide more “sharp tools” to develop marine resource, and to be the pioneer to safeguard our maritime rights and interests. Human being at first took advantages of sea for “fishing and salt”. Till now, sea plays an unspeakable important role in a nation’s economy. China wants to largely develop marine resource, and strives hard to safeguard maritime rights and interests. On one hand, China’s economy is rapidly developing, the energy demanding is increasing year by year; on the other hand, the marine resource in surrounding sea areas is under the danger of “being shared”, as a result, our national maritime rights and interest are threatened. In China’s surrounding sea areas, there have abundant old and gas resource in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea. But most of the resource is in deep sea areas and to exploit those resources require high quality, good performance offshore facilities such as semi-submersible drilling rigs. Before we could have developed those high-tech and high value-added offshore facilities, the exploitation in China’s deep sea remained blank. Therefore, the resource in China’s surrounding sea areas were first handed by some neighboring countries through their use of advanced technology imported from western developed countries. Sharpen tools first for making good work. Under the collaboration, China has greatly increased her technical level on shipbuilding, for example, SWS, who took efforts improving in the areas of high-end offshore equipment engineering, and construction. The successful deliveries of many offshore equipment including “Haiyangshiyou 981” contributed greatly to our nation’s resource exploitation ability. Especially on May 9th 2012, “Haiyangshiyou 981” officially started her drilling operation, declaring that China has entered the world leading offshore oil and gas exploitation ranks. Therefore, China has enhanced her rights to speak on surrounding sea areas, marking China as a strong maritime country has an important role internationally. As Liu Xigui, Head of State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said on the recent held Beijing International Science and Technology Industrial Exhibition, “Haiyangshiyou 981” is the world’s spotlight. It is not only the “floating homeland” on the South China Sea, but also a symbol that Chinese government and Chinese people persistently safeguard national maritime rights and interests. In fact, when people are focusing on “Haiyangshiyou 981” drilling rig, they pay more attention to the China’s marine resource exploitation ability. However, this is the glory mission and sacred duty every shipbuilding person should fulfill. Compared to some developed western countries, China’s offshore production started late. Although, we have achieved fast development in recent years, some key parts associated research remains considerably gaps compared to foreign advanced level, as a result, some core equipment are relied on imports. The recent published Offshore Engineering Implement Project Plan specifies that we have to strengthen some core supporting parts and to achieve technical research and industrialization, to promote industrial chain development. For China’s offshore facilities enterprises, it is our urgent duty to accelerate transformation development, striving hard to change from technology following to technology leading, expanding from scale expanding to quality improving, transiting from parts support to innovation driven. Sailing from the Yangtze River, and riding on the waves in the South China Sea. A great number of high-end offshore equipment take “Haiyangshiyou 981” as a leading flagship, made contribution to China’s deep sea resource exploitation. Dispute in the South China Sea tells us, it is not enough for China to have only one “Haiyangshiyou 981”, in the future, Chinese Shipbuilders should revolve around the strategy of building a strong maritime country, keep innovating, forge ahead with determination so as to provide more advanced “deep blue sharp tools” for China’s marine resource exploitation, to better protect and safeguard China’s maritime rights and interests.