From Bloomberg:
Japan and China, Asia’s biggest energy users, will likely miss a deadline to agree on joint development of natural gas fields in a disputed area of the East China Sea.
“We are far from reaching any conclusion, and it’s regrettable that China hasn’t made any realistic, decisive proposals,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters in Tokyo. “We want China to present a concrete project plan in a proactive manner.”
Japan and China have been bickering over ownership of the gas fields and had planned by autumn this year to come up with a framework to jointly exploit the fields. They may contain as much as 200 billion cubic meters of gas, equivalent to three years of Japan’s consumption of the fuel. [Full Text]
Read also Japan urges China to be ‘practical’ on gas fields by AFP, and China refutes Japan’s blame on East China Sea issue by Xinhua.
