Indonesia seizes haul of pangolin meat bound for Vietnam

Two Chinese patrol boats in March ordered a ship doing seismic work for Forum Energy Plc (FEP) to leave an area near disputed waters about 250 kilometers west of the Philippines’ island of Palawan, Philippines Army Lieutenant General Juancho Sabban said at the time. The Chinese left the area after two military aircraft were deployed, he said. The contract area for Chertsey, U.K.-based Forum Energy lies in waters China, Vietnam and the Philippines agreed to explore jointly in an arrangement that lapsed in 2008. Majority owned by Manila-based Philex Mining Corp. (PX), Forum plans to drill wells there, it said in a March 15 statement. The field the Philippines plans to exploit is a “very important” part of Aquino’s plan to cut oil imports, spokesman Carandang said by phone May 16. American policy makers have put forward the U.S., which has defense treaties with the Philippines and Thailand and guarantees Taiwan’s security, as a counterbalance to China. More than half of the world’s merchant fleet by tonnage passes through the South China Sea each year, according to GlobalSecurity, a research group in Alexandria, Virginia.



Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared a “national interest in the freedom of navigation and unimpeded lawful commerce” in the waters at a regional meeting in Hanoi in October. That statement gave Southeast Asian nations “a little more confidence,” said Michael Green, a former Asia specialist at the U.S. National Security Council who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It took somebody to say ‘we’re not going to be bullied.’” The U.S. navy has patrolled Asia-Pacific waters since World War II. China has bolstered its forces over the past decade, procuring nuclear-powered submarines and developing an aircraft carrier, according to a Defense Department report in August. In a 1988 skirmish over the Spratly islands, China killed more than 70 Vietnamese troops and sank several ships, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 1994, Chinese warships were sent to stop Vietnamese drilling.



Chinese studies cited by the EIA suggest the waters sit atop more than 14 times BP Plc estimates of the country’s oil reserves and 10 times those for gas. China’s oil reserves have shrunk almost 40 percent since 2001 as the economy expanded 10.5 percent a year on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Vietnam’s domestic gas demand is set to triple by 2025, according to World Bank estimates. The Philippines plans to boost hydrocarbon reserves by 40 percent in the next two decades to reduce its almost total reliance on imports, according to a department of energy plan.



Going it alone may be a negotiating tactic, said Marshall Mays, director of Emerging Alpha inHong Kong. China and its neighbors are likely “working on the assumption that a negotiated split of revenues” will be agreed, he said. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations has made little progress in negotiating a binding code of conduct for the sea with China since 2002. “By agreeing to a joint exploration you ipso facto recognize the legitimacy of the claims of the other countries,” said Ralf Emmers, a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “That’s a very tough political decision.”





Indonesia seizes haul of pangolin meat bound for Vietnam

Reuters 26 May 2011



Tonnes of dead pangolins, an endangered scaly animal, were seized by Indonesian customs on Thursday, foiling an effort by smugglers to ship the meat to Vietnam, officials said on Thursday. Indonesia's customs office found 309 crates each containing between six to 10 adult and baby pangolins, weighing a total of 7.5 tonnes, at the country's biggest port in Jakarta, said a customs official. It also found 65 kilograms of pangolin scales. "The most outra
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