Vietnam has once more accused China of sabotaging an oil and gas exploration vessel, in a block co-owned by Russia’s Gazprom, as the dispute over the resource-rich South China Sea intensifies.
PetroVietnam, the state oil and gas monopoly, said yesterday two Chinese boats cut the seismic exploration cable of the Binh Minh 2, a Vietnamese survey ship, on Friday in Vietnam’s block 113, which is jointly owned with Russia’s Gazprom. The Binh Minh 2 had exploration cables in another block cut by Chinese vessels in May.
Pham Viet Dung, a senior PetroVietnam official, told the company’s official newspaper the incident – the first reported act of cable-cutting since last year – was a “brazen violation” of Vietnam’s sovereignty and called on the Vietnamese government to protest to Beijing. He later confirmed his comments to the Financial Times.