Drilling ship leaves Vietnam oil block after China row

HANOI: The drilling ship at the centre of a row between Vietnam and China over oil prospecting in disputed waters in the South China Sea has arrived in waters off the Malaysian port of Labuan, shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon showed yesterday.

Drilling by the Deepsea Metro I ship was suspended in Vietnam’s Block 136/3 last month after pressure from China, which says the concession operated by Spain’s Repsol overlaps the vast majority of the waterway that it claims as its own.

The ship, used by Norway’s Odfjell Drilling Ltd., was reported to be in Labuan at 9.17am ( 0117 GMT), according to shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon.

It was last recorded at the drilling site on July 30.

Odfjell Drilling did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The row over the drilling inflamed tensions between Vietnam and China, whose claims in the South China Sea are disputed by five Southeast Asian countries.

Repsol said last month that drilling had been suspended after the company spent US$ 27 million on the well.

Co- owners of the block are Vietnam’s state oil firm and Mubadala Development Co of the United Arab Emirates.

The block lies inside the Ushaped ‘nine-dash line’ that marks the area that China claims in the sea. — Reuters