This week's Manufacturing Snapshot of the Week is an image of the beautiful South China Sea. In this week’s breaking news, China discovered a natural gas field in the area.
The AP article on the discovery describes the South China Sea as “One of the world’s busiest shipping routes and a patchwork of overlapping claims by governments including China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan.”
The South China Sea has been a site of great tension lately. Last summer, China deployed an oil rig in the South China Sea near islands claimed by both Vietnam and China, causing tension between the countries. The oil rig was removed in July, but tensions flared up again early this year. The AP reported that the Philippines had begun protesting China’s reclamation of land in the disputed area. China was allegedly constructing an artificial island on a reef in the South China Sea, which neighboring countries are worried could be used as an air or naval base.
The natural gas field discovered this week is considerable in size—it could potentially yield 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas.