FACTBOX-Disputed maritime oil and gas areas in Asia

April 30 (Reuters) - Maritime disputes may hold up
prospective energy developments in Asia for years or decades
despite high oil and gas prices, but analysts say joint
development is still on the cards.

Here is a factbox on some of the disputed areas. For a
related analysis click [ID:nSP201637].

GREATER SUNRISE -- East Timor/Australia

The $5 billion development of the Greater Sunrise gas
fields in the Timor Sea may begin soon, after East Timor's
parliament ratified a pact with Australia in February to evenly
split royalties. The fields are estimated to hold 8 trillion
cubic feet (Tcf) of gas and up to 300 million barrels of
condensate.

Greater Sunrise was frozen in 2004 while waiting for
Canberra and Dili to resolve their differences over the revenue
split.

There is still debate on whether to transport the gas to
Darwin in northern Australia, process it at sea at an offshore
plant, or bring it via pipeline to East Timor for export from
an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility.

The project involves Woodside (WPL.AX), Royal Dutch/Shell
(RDSa.L) (RDSb.L) and Japan's Osaka Gas Co. Ltd. (9532.T).

SPRATLY ISLANDS --
China/Vietnam/Taiwan/Malaysia/Philippines

The national oil companies of China, the Philippines, and
Vietnam signed a three-year joint-seismic accord in 2005, to
cooperatively assess oil and gas deposits.

Their proximity to nearby oil and gas-producing fields,
discovered in the 1960s, bolstered the belief that they harbour
rich untapped reserves of oil and gas.

Modern disputes date back to the 1930s, with claims
bolstered by references to historical maps and literature. In
1988, China and Vietnam fought a brief naval battle near the
Spratly reefs, in which more than 70 Vietnamese sailors died.

PATTANI TROUGH -- Thailand/Cambodia

The Gulf of Thailand is already a gas-producing zone but
27,000 sq km (10,430 sq mile) is disputed between Thailand and
Cambodia. It involves no territory.

Thailand produces natural gas but still relies on imports,
which make up about 27 percent of consumption running at
565,854 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

Cambodia, which relies on foreign aid, hopes to begin
pumping oil from offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand by
2009.

JAPAN/CHINA

China's CNOOC Ltd. (0883.HK) said in April it had begun
producing gas at the Tianwaitian field in the East China Sea
despite Japan's objections to development. It is also ready to
begin producing from the nearby and larger Chunxiao field as
soon as Beijing gives it the go-ahead, a source told Reuters.

A Japanese government official quoted Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao, on a visit to Tokyo in April, as proposing that
high-level talks about the dispute could be held next month.

Beijing and Tokyo disagree over the boundary between their
exclusive marine economic zones and Japan objects to Chinese
development of gas fields near the border, although they are in
an undisputed area. Tokyo fears drilling there could
inadvertently drain Japanese gas through a honeycomb of seabed
rocks.

The amount of fuel found so far, in a cluster of fields in
the Xihu trough and nearby Pinghu field, is relatively small.
CNOOC's gas output from the Tianwaitian field last year was
equivalent to a relatively modest 4 million cubic feet per day.
But an industry source said actual output was now running at
500,000 cubic metres a day (17.65 million cubic feet), and when
Chunxiao comes on line, annual production at the two fields
could reach 600 million cubic metres a year.

Chunxiao has by far the biggest net gas reserves, and
operator CNOOC Ltd. (CEO.N) puts these at just 4.8 billion
cubic metres -- enough to meet a month of last year's demand.

VIETNAM/CHINA

China has disputed Vietnam's right to a $2 billion pipeline
project, in which BP (BP.L) aims to carry gas nearly 400 km
(249 miles) from two new offshore fields to Vietnam's south
coast.

The two fields, Moc Tinh, located in Block 05.3, and Hai
Thach, in Block 05.2, are near the Nam Con Son gas project,
Vietnam's biggest, where BP works with Petrovietnam, India's
Oil & Natural Gas (ONGC.BO) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N) to
supply about 13.2 million cubic metres per day of gas.

The two countries agreed last year to increase joint oil
and gas exploration efforts in the Gulf of Tonkin and continue
talks about disputed maritime areas further south.

China seized the Paracel Islands, a set of islets just
north of the Spratly group, in 1974 and has occupied them since
despite Vietnamese protests.

MALAYSIA/BRUNEI

Malaysia and Brunei said last year they would speed up
efforts to resolve a dispute over the ownership of two large
oil exploration blocks off the northwest of Borneo in the South
China Sea. The row has stopped deepwater exploration in the
area.

In 2003, Malaysian state-owned Petronas [PETR.UL] awarded
deepwater blocks L and M to Murphy Oil (MUR.N). But Brunei
awarded a production-sharing contract (PSC) to France's Total
(TOTF.PA) for Block J and was negotiating PSC terms with Shell
(RDSa.L) for adjacent Block K.

Murphy made a sizeable discovery in a Malaysian block near
the disputed area in 2003, with oil from the Kikeh field
expected to start flowing by this September from reserves at
between 400 million and 700 million barrels.

AMBALAT -- Malaysia/Indonesia.

Indonesia urged Italy's Eni (ENI.MI) in March to explore
for oil and gas in the Ambalat block, though an official at its
foreign ministry has said Indonesia and Malaysia are still in
talks over the border of the two countries, including Ambalat.

Eni operates the Ambalat block under a PSC with the
Indonesian government signed in 1999. Some parts of the block
overlap with Malaysia claims and both sides have handed out
contracts to major foreigns firms in the area.

In March 2005, Indonesia sent warships and fighter jets to
the area, after Malaysia struck an exploration deal early in
2005 with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Petronas.
Source: Reuters