Amid an increasingly tense territorial dispute between the Philippines and China, an Australian-Filipino consortium is set to drill a new deepwater exploratory well in the resource-rich West Philippine Sea, hoping to tap a commercially viable oil reservoir, a lawmaker revealed yesterday. Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers’ Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty said the private consortium that runs petroleum Service Contract (SC) 55 will spud or drill the Hawkeye exploratory well on Aug. 1, immediately after the July 31 arrival of the super deepwater drillship Maersk Venturer on site. The SC 55 site, fortunately, is not situated in parts of the West Philippine Sea that are being claimed by China.

Romero, P. (2015, July 20). Aussie-Phl group to drill for oil in disputed waters. Philippine Star, pp. 1, 10.