Because information about this multi-million-dollar oil and gas exploration contract (right around the time of Clinton's lifting of the trade embargo against Vietnam) has already been in the public domain via a published non-fiction, I can now say that this was part of my law career before i gave it all up to become an academic in 2001:
Very sadly, this was also around the time I returned to Vietnam as an international lawyer, for a chance to see my high school friends and to attend my beloved maternal grandfather's funeral in a poverty-stricken Vietnam of the early 90s. I wore the mourning cloth for myself and on behalf of my mother, the only daughter in her Hue mandarin family. Attending his funeral with me were my best friend from elementary and high schools, lovely Tran Dieu Quyen, and my only true high-school beloved friend whom I could personally relate to, the beautiful Do Nhu Hien (Hien was my beautiful and talented friend, besides Hoang Thi Luong Ngoc). I mean Ngoc and Hien were not just high school friends. They were family friends. I never forget Quyen-Hien-Ngoc. They were part of my growing up in Vietnam.It was during this period of time that I wrote "Daughters of the River Huong," on the planes, in hotel rooms, and at my flat in Singapore. I wrote it for my mother, my grandmother, and their imperial city Hue.
MOBIL STRIKES OIL DEAL WITH VIETNAM
By Martha M. Hamilton April 20, 1994
Mobil Corp. signed a production-sharing contract in Hanoi yesterday with Vietnam's state-owned oil and gas company, almost two decades after the collapse of the government of South Vietnam forced the company to abandon oil exploration there.
Mobil owns half of a consortium that hopes to produce oil from the Blue Dragon field in the South China Sea -- just 30 miles east of another field where oil has been discovered. The company estimates the chances of finding oil there at 25 percent.
That's high in an industry where the recent odds of striking oil have been closer to 10 percent to 15 percent, according to Mobil officials. "It's one of those areas that we are very excited about just because it is opening up to Western industry now," said Steven D. Hall, producing adviser for Mobil's Asia/Pacific/Middle East group.
MOBIL STRIKES OIL DEAL WITH VIETNAM
By Martha M. Hamilton April 20, 1994
Mobil Corp. signed a production-sharing contract in Hanoi yesterday with Vietnam's state-owned oil and gas company, almost two decades after the collapse of the government of South Vietnam forced the company to abandon oil exploration there.
Mobil owns half of a consortium that hopes to produce oil from the Blue Dragon field in the South China Sea -- just 30 miles east of another field where oil has been discovered. The company estimates the chances of finding oil there at 25 percent.
That's high in an industry where the recent odds of striking oil have been closer to 10 percent to 15 percent, according to Mobil officials. "It's one of those areas that we are very excited about just because it is opening up to Western industry now," said Steven D. Hall, producing adviser for Mobil's Asia/Pacific/Middle East group.
The stage was set for Mobil's return to Vietnam in 1990, when the second-largest U.S. oil company began informal talks with Vietnamese officials about leasing offshore acreage, anticipating the eventual lifting of an embargo on trade with the Southeast Asian nation.President Clinton ended the 19-year-old trade embargo Feb. 3. Mobil is an old Vietnam hand. The company began acquiring seismic data in the area in 1971 and drilled its first well in Vietnam in 1974. That well was in the White Tiger field, Vietnam's only producing oil field, which accounted for more than a fifth of the country's export income in 1990.
After Mobil's departure, White Tiger was developed by a joint venture of Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army, Mobil abandoned its efforts in the White Tiger field and in Big Bear, an area under development by Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary Co.
Seismic data collected prior to the collapse of South Vietnam was an advantage in evaluating acreage that PetroVietnam has recently made available for exploration and development, Hall said.Mobil controls 50 percent of MJC Petroleum Co., which bid on the parcel that contains the Blue Dragon field in October.The other partners are Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., which owns 25 percent; Indonesia Petroleum Ltd., which owns 15 percent, and Nissho Iwai Corp., a Japanese corporation, which owns 10 percent.
In December, Vietnam awarded the consortium a 72.5 percent interest in Blue Dragon.
The award was formalized in the production agreement signed yesterday.
Mobil Chairman Lucio A. Noto said yesterday that Blue Dragon "fits our strategy of finding and developing new core assets for the long term."
Like other oil companies, Mobil is looking for new sources of oil and gas as existing supplies are depleted.
Many of the most promising areas right now, including Vietnam, China and parts of the former Soviet Union, are areas where political barriers to exploration and development by Western companies are being lifted.
Producing oil in the South China Sea presents some geologic difficulties, said Mobil's Hall.
Extremely high temperatures -- as high as 350 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the rock formations there are hard on drilling equipment, and high pressure in the formations means the possibility of an accidental rupture, he said.
After Mobil's departure, White Tiger was developed by a joint venture of Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army, Mobil abandoned its efforts in the White Tiger field and in Big Bear, an area under development by Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary Co.
Seismic data collected prior to the collapse of South Vietnam was an advantage in evaluating acreage that PetroVietnam has recently made available for exploration and development, Hall said.Mobil controls 50 percent of MJC Petroleum Co., which bid on the parcel that contains the Blue Dragon field in October.The other partners are Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., which owns 25 percent; Indonesia Petroleum Ltd., which owns 15 percent, and Nissho Iwai Corp., a Japanese corporation, which owns 10 percent.
In December, Vietnam awarded the consortium a 72.5 percent interest in Blue Dragon.
The award was formalized in the production agreement signed yesterday.
Mobil Chairman Lucio A. Noto said yesterday that Blue Dragon "fits our strategy of finding and developing new core assets for the long term."
Like other oil companies, Mobil is looking for new sources of oil and gas as existing supplies are depleted.
Many of the most promising areas right now, including Vietnam, China and parts of the former Soviet Union, are areas where political barriers to exploration and development by Western companies are being lifted.
Producing oil in the South China Sea presents some geologic difficulties, said Mobil's Hall.
Extremely high temperatures -- as high as 350 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the rock formations there are hard on drilling equipment, and high pressure in the formations means the possibility of an accidental rupture, he said.
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