Reclamation in the South China Sea & Environmental Impact The South China Sea extends from a southwestern boundary along the parallel between Kalimantan and Sumatra northeast to a line drawn from the northern tip of Taiwan to the coast of Fukien, China. This semi enclosed marine area is bordered by China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau,
Economic & Commercial Maritime Energy Rivalry - Urals Oil Russia’s Urals oil is used as a reference brand for pricing of export oil mixture with the other main reference brand being Brent. It comprises a mix of heavy sour oil of Urals and the Volga Region blended with light oil of Western Siberia Urals crude
Tibetan Plateau & China's Water Games The Tibetan Plateau has become a party to an insidious water game and some of the countries in the region remain blissfully unaware of the sinister moves afoot. The Tibetan plateau’s glaciers and altitude makes Tibet the world’s third largest freshwater repository. This is why it is occasionally termed
Roots of Muslim Maritime Trade The history of transregional trade in the Indian Ocean is reflective of a vibrant trade from around the 1st century AD . With the expansion of Islam into India, East Africa and Southeast Asia the Indian Ocean began to cohere as a unified global economy and subsequently bound up in
China's Quest for Seaports Access & LNG Trade Commerce dependent on seaborne trade: The Chinese Communist Party declared that “maritime power” status was essential to realizing its national ambitions. In 2017 China’s imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) rose by an unanticipated 46 % reflected in 16 operational LNG terminals importing 71 bcm emphasizing that
Exclusive Economic Zone & UNCLOS States Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) extend no more than 200 nautical miles from the territorial sea baseline and is adjacent to the 12 nautical mile territorial sea. The Part V Article 55 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines the EEZ as: “The exclusive
Loan for Hambantota Port The Port of Colombo is located near the route between the Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal, which is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Around 36,000 vessels pass annually on this key corridor between Asia and Europe, including about 4,500 tankers. As the Port of Colombo has been
By Nadir Mumtaz Coastal Province of Balochistan & Reko Diq Copper Gold Project The province of Balochistan covers almost 44% of the country in term of area yet the population is only 5% of Pakistan’s population. Its potential natural resources are still geologically undiscovered. Alarmingly net foreign direct investment in Pakistan dipped by 2.9%
International Seabed Authority The International Seabed Authority (ISA) Assembly of 168 member states met in Jamaica recently to regulate deep-sea mining however the progressive regulatory proposals of Chile, Vanuatu, Palau, France and Costa Rica were unfortunately vetoed and critical ocean environmental issues adjourned by the Assembly to next year. Calls for a precautionary pause or
National Fleets versus Phantoms Fleets Worldwide countries maintain fleets in the Public or Private sector or hybrid depending on the geography and craving of sovereign assertiveness. Cargo preferential treatments are influential instruments of economic cartelization . Yet such policies can have an adverse effect on the nation's economy by increasing the cost of transport and
