The news was seemingly big but the announcement curiously low key. Earlier this month, China declared that it had discovered what it described as the world’s first large-scale gas field in ultra deep waters and not far beneath the seabed. Lingshui 36-1 contained 100 billion cubic metres of gas, said the China national offshore oil corporation (CNOOC), and the data and plans to extract it had been approved by the ‘relevant government authorities’.