East China Sea Gas: Not Worth Fighting About

China and Japan have "struck a deal" to jointly develop a gas field in the East China Sea. This comes after many years of diplomatic wrangling, often with loud nationalistic overtones.

However, these gas deposits are not going to help either country very much. As noted by Jun Okumura (thanks!), who spotted the data about the the Chinese oil equivalent of the natural gas reserve estimates for three of the fields:

Shirakaba/Chungxiao: 63.8 million bbl
Kashi/Tianwaitian: 12.6 million bbl
Kusunoki/Danqiao: 15.2 million bbl
Asunaro/Canxue: NA

Now look at this:

Shirakaba/Chungxiao: 174.8 thousand bbl/d
Kashi/Tianwaitian: 34.5 thousand bbl/d
Kusunoki/Danqiao: 41.6 thousand bbl/d
Asunaro/Canxue: NA

Jun Okumura notes: "That’s how much you can extract every day if you use up the entire reserve in a single year. Take a more reasonable, say 20-life span for the gas fields, and you get an idea of how trivial the gas fields really are."

Source: Yomuri Shimbun (in Japanese)

Trivial indeed, and not worth fighting about. Pandabonium, who knows much more about energy issues than I do, also notes in an email to me that the UK produced 77.4 billion cubic meters of gas in 2006 alone - presumably most of which came from their part of the North Sea: The Shirakaba/Chungxiao field has TOTAL estimated reserves of 4.75 billion cubic meters.

But, that is not what news media like AFP will tell you. Instead, they quote an "expert" who makes an entirely irrelevant comment:

"For Japan, it's part of the country's long-term efforts to reduce its heavy reliance on oil imports from the Middle East," said Yoshihisa Miyamoto, an analyst at Okasan Securities in Tokyo. "For China, securing stable energy supply is a pressing need to sustain its hot economy," Miyamoto said.

AFP: Japan, China strike landmark gas-sharing deal

Yomiuri: Mutual gas benefit stressed / East China Sea exploration pact highlights Japan-China ties