Oil drilling: China goes deep

China doesn't do anything small.

The Great Wall. The Three Gorges Dam. The world's biggest population. Asia's largest economy.

You can add offshore oil drillling to that list, people.

The country's biggest deepwater oil rig was unveiled yesterday in Shanghai, and it's a doozy.

The CNOOC981, which cost $922 million to develop, can reportedly operate in depths of up to 3,000 meters and extract oil from 12,000 meters, according to Chinese website Global Times.

That would be a huge leap for China's deepwater drilling capabilities, which previously only went down to 500 meters.

The rig weighs 31,000 tons and has a deck the size of a football field. It took China State Shipbuilding Corp three years to build it.

The state-run China National Offshore Oil company will operate the rig, which will leave Shanghai on Thursday for a "trial cruise" before drilling in the South China Sea in July, the People's Daily reports.

The CNOOC981 is "undoubtedly a milestone in China's oil drilling industry," Lin Boqiang, director of the Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times. "It is always a first-come-first-served game when vying for non-renewable resources in disputed sea areas, as the resources are not infinite."

Far from it.

For decades, the South China Sea and its ample oil and natural gas reserves have drawn the attention of China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and just about every other country in Southeast Asia.

A potentially big problem? Naturally.

This is China, after all.