The Philippines will gain 13 million hectares in additional territory, an area slightly smaller than Luzon, should the United Nations approve next year the government’s claim on a region off the coast of Isabela and Aurora, Environment Secretary Ramon Jesus Paje said on Monday. Paje said the undersea region, called Benham Rise, could turn the Philippines into a natural gas exporter because of the area’s huge methane deposits. Studies conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the past five years indicate large deposits of methane in solid form, Paje said after a Senate budget hearing. The government is only awaiting a formal declaration from the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (Unclos) that Benham Rise is on the country’s continental shelf and therefore part of its territory, Paje said. Legal basis Once the Unclos establishes that Benham Rise is part of the Philippines, “we would have legal basis to enter into exploration agreements with private companies to explore… (the area’s) resources,” said Sen. Franklin Drilon, chair of the chamber’s finance committee. Drilon said a favorable Unclos declaration would mean “increasing our territory from present 30 million hectares to possibly 43 million” with the inclusion of Benham Rise. Discussion over Benham Rise generated excitement especially after Paje said that Philippine representatives were just awaiting one more meeting “to answer questions” before a special Unclos committee. Only claimant Paje said there was no reason for the Unclos committee not to issue a decision favorable to the country “since we are the only claimant, unlike in the western side (where the Spratly Islands are).” “We have submitted a claim under (Unclos) sometime in late 2008. We got a reply from the UN lately (asking us) to answer some questions. They intend to pass a resolution sometime in mid-2012 to approve our claim (that it is) part of the Philippine continental shelf,” Paje told reporters after the hearing. Records showed that the Philippines officially submitted a claim with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in New York on April 8, 2009. Davide submission Hilario Davide, then Philippine ambassador to the United Nations, filed the country’s partial submission with the commission. The United Nations says the continental shelf is “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea” up to 370 km (200 nautical miles) from the archipelagic baseline. An extended continental shelf goes farther than 370 km. The Philippines claims that Benham Rise is an extension of its continental shelf. Paje said Benham Rise was within the country’s 370-km exclusive economic zone. American geologist The environment secretary said an American geologist surnamed Benham discovered the area that was between 40 and 2,000 meters below the waterline in 1933. “But we are able to define categorically that it is attached to our continental shelf only recently. We have proven (to) Unclos that it is attached. So now the UN is considering it for decision sometime in 2012,” Paje said. He said gas deposits in the area would enable the country to achieve energy sufficiency. “Benham Rise is very relevant because of its gas deposits (which has been) confirmed particularly by (the) National Mapping Resource Information Agency. It has given us the data that (the area) contains solid methane. We have not explored it but we have found nodules of methane in the surface and this is very important to us,” he said. Kalayaan, Scarborough The Kalayaan Island Group, which is part of the disputed Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, both located in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) and claimed by the Philippines, are also believed to contain oil and natural gas. Paje said there was the possibility that the country could export gas in the future. The secretary added that there would be a demand for gas deposits in Benham Rise “because it’s much cleaner than (other) fossil fuels.” The DENR formally submitted its proposed P16.99-billion budget for 2012 to the Senate finance committee. Source:- http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/42329/philippines-may-soon-own-vast-gas-rich-area
Nice post Mr Micawber. It seems that extraction of the substance might upset the environmentalists, however.
Methane Clathrates, so far these are not really being exploited anywhere given that the technology for easy safe extraction does really exist yet. As a carbon based fuel there is enough of this stuff on the ocean floor to last a thousand years but we would go runaway greenhouse long before we had burned a fraction of it.
Looks like a work in progress Oss. No doubt they will find a way as long as it remains profitable. What d'ya think?
From an astronomy point of view I have just had my memory jogged. Twas in the mid eighties that I was involved in project in a meteorite impact crater in central Sweden. The brains behind the initial idea was an astronomer called Thomas Gold. I actually shook hands with him . The other thing about the project was that it was to be proof that hydrocarbons were non biological in origin and had come up from deeper down inside the earth. The Russians appeared to have found proof of this earlier. Anyhow, it brings me to the Russians. I gather that they have found a way of producing solid methane from beneath the surface , but maybe from onshore rather than offshore sources - not sure. What I do know is that in the UK North Sea, oil companies held back on exploring and developing high pressure high temperature reserves until they found a way of doing it safely. The shale fracking industry is about at that stage too now, in the UK, onshore where they are at a point where it cabe extracted safely. I have heard that safe offshore drilling and production of hydrates could be ready by 2015.
Oh they will find a way to get it to the surface, for a world addicted to hydrocarbons they have no other choice, oil is still far cheaper than it's real value as a resource, it's only by agreement that it ends up cheap enough to burn, the economics of alternatives are seriously distorted by the long term underpricing of oil that has existed for decades. Don't get me wrong I like technology I want technology and I sure as hell want it to continue but fossil fuels are not an endless solution, the methane clathrates are at considerable depths and it's going to be interesting to see how they actually extract it eventually.
He was a proponent of the 'steady state' theory along with Fred Hoyle, interesting you met met him, the carbon in the world got here via Carbonaceous chondrites when the planet condensed out of the early dust of the proto solar system, there are a lot of amino acids and other organics up there in outer space, our planet picked up quite a lot of it, but oil and coal are, in most researchers view, quite clearly the products of biological activity concentrating these elements and organic compounds via photosynthesis and the decay of living organisms. Gold certainly had some great successes but it looks like his 'Abiogenic petroleum origin' theory is more in the same category as the steady state theory. There seem to have been a lot of experimental failings in that deep drilling project in 86 and there are allegations that he plagerised the earlier work of the Soviets. I know quite a lot about some of the other things he was involved in like Steady State and particularly his correct predictions regards pulsars made after Jocelyn Bell's discovery of them in the late 60's, but I think I would have to read a lot more on this abiogenic theory to comment further
I tried to read up on the Russian reports but it was all in Russian. I was on the first well that was drilled. There was nothing there except a whiff of methane either side of some dyke intrusions. A lot of people lost a lot of money because of it. I only had internal hearsay on the subsequent wells and that was that they fared no better. It's all really in wikipedia now. His claim to fame is to do with the pulsars? I seem to recall that.
I think he was a very successful serious scientist that was not afraid to go out on a limb with a theory, but his was a some you win some you lose situation, Fred Hoyle was a great man too but 'Steady State' just ended up with no evidence and Fred kind of refused to let it die for years, saying that the big bang while it has lots of evidence to support it also has a great many unanswered questions
John it is very good to have a gentleman like you on board on our site, I am actually rather impressed that you worked with such a high end scientist back in the old days. Apparently, according to Wiki, Tom Gold had the Soviet research translated to English where upon he was really happy to find others that thought like him, but he was also upset that was not the first to come up with the abiogenic theory, scientists don't tend to do their better work in their 50's and 60's by that time they are usually better teachers, but it is the young guys that tend to make the break-through's. I know about the Pulsar work and the likes, but was not really aware of his name, interesting that he helped Carl Sagan who in my book was a giant of imagination and who is sadly missed to this day. That you were on the well that was drilled back then is special really good to know , your guys got some hydrocarbons back up apparently but it could have been a product of what was pumped down in the drilling process. Different world and I understand fully that there are subtleties that the ordinary guy in the street, like me in this case, will not understand, but I will be very interested in hearing your views on this stuff in future.
Well, it's not everyday that I come across anybody for whom the above has any meaning. Even in the oil industry that I work in now it is regarded as completely unconventional. On meeting Tommy Gold, it was really just a case of him introducing himself to the team of "scientists" at the rigsite on what was the opening day of the investigation. We got back to surface a few materials including hydrogen, for example. Which got everyone excited. All of the investors were rubbing their hands with glee. But we later discovered that it was being generated by the reaction between the steel we had placed in the ground and the water in the well.
