TOKYO, Jan. 18, 2022—INPEX, a Japanese-governmental oil developer, Jan. 17, 2022 announced it would start exploring a Japanese offshore well that is believed storing oil and natural gas reserves 1.4 times more than aggregate domestic reserves. The well is located 130 to 150 kilometers off the Japan Sea coast and nearly at a mid-point between Japan and Korea, the two countries that have been exchanging diplomatic tussles over the war-time Japanese army’s use of Korean women as conform women and sovereignty dispute over Japan’s Takeshima Island.
Exploratory drilling will be held between March and July 2022, the company’s announcement said.
INPEX has been researching and exploring the areas around the well, located off the coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan since 2016, it said. A spokeswoman told The Prospect that the area is located well within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, thus there’s no concern that it would be embroiled in dispute with Korea and other countries.
An official of the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry reportedly has said that the well might store as much as 140 percent more oil and gas reserves than aggregate Japanese reserves. The spokeswoman declined to confirm the size and said that it is something that exploratory drilling can find out. Japan’s domestic oil and gas production accounts for a fraction of its consumption.
The INPEX project is believed to be the first such undertaking in Japan in years and illustrates the Japanese government’s concerns over the country’s energy security, which was almost brought down to the knees by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power explosion and ensuring massive radiation leakage.
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