Economy

Dipping into the big drink

By Wang Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-22 07:47

Ocean resources key to quenching thirst for energy

Eight tugboats pull a domestically-made advanced semi-submersible oil platform out of a boatyard in Shanghai on Feb 26. Chen Fei / Xinhua

SHANGHAI - China will build four industrial zones for ocean engineering equipment and develop several enterprises to service the field over the next 10 to 20 years, each with a projected revenue of 10 billion yuan ($1.49 billion), a senior official said.

The nation's long-term goal is to form a complete industrial chain in this sector, Zhang Xiangmu, director-general of the equipment industry department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said on Tuesday at the International Forum on the Development of Ocean Engineering.

"The world ocean map will undergo fundamental changes in the next 50 years. Major coastal nations are all developing and exploring ocean-related industries," Zhang said.

The International Energy Agency said that China, which used an equivalent of 2.26 billion tons of petroleum in 2009, has overtaken the United States to become the world's largest consumer of energy.

The ocean has now become the new frontier for energy- thirsty nations like China, which are investing in the research and development of this resource.

In the past decade, 60 percent of new oil and gas fields were located in the ocean, which is expected to provide 35 percent of the world's total oil output and 41 percent of its natural gas by the year 2020.

"Global investment in the research and development of ocean oil and gas exploitation has reached $50 billion to $60 billion each year and the number is expected to exceed $80 billion during the next five years," Zhang said.

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According to Zhang, 85 percent of the 116 industries in China are related to ocean engineering, a promising sector for national growth and job opportunities.

"Whoever has the best ocean engineering technology will have the upper hand in ocean development. This is strategically vital to our nation," Zhang said.

"As of 2008, the value of the ocean engineering equipment market totaled $50 billion yuan and it is expected to exceed $100 billion in the next decade. We must speed up our efforts to explore the ocean's resources," said Chen Mingyi, honorary chairman of the Fujian Shipbuilding Industry Association.