Three more offshore blocks in Myanmar under gas exploration

Three more available blocks off Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi coast are under natural gas exploration with test wells being planned for drilling by Malaysia 's Petronas Company, sources with the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise confirmed Sunday.

A geophysical site survey at blocks M-16, M-17 and M-18, with areas ranging from about 13,000 square-kilometers (sq-km) to 14, 000 sq-km, has begun this week and the survey will last over a month until late March, the sources said.

Petronas had earlier been involved in gas exploration at block M-15 in the same offshore area.

Recent years have seen foreign oil companies increase engagement in oil and gas exploration in Myanmar. Thailand's PTTEP, for example, has covered a number of blocks including M-3, M-4, M- 7, M-9 and M-11 under contracts.

Besides, a consortium comprising South Korea's Daewoo International, South Korea Gas Corporation, the ONGC Videsh Ltd of India and the Gas Authority of India has also been engaged in gas exploration at block A-1 off Myanmar's western Rakhine coast since 2000. In early 2004, huge natural gas deposit, estimated to yield up to 14 trillion cubic feet (396.2 billion cubic-meters) of gas, was found at the block.

Myanmar is planning to sell gas produced from the area to India or China and negotiations are underway to reach formal agreements.

Another consortium made up of Chinese and Singaporean companies is also engaged in oil and gas exploration in some onshore and offshore areas.

Since Myanmar opened its oil and gas sector to foreign investment in 1988, oil companies from a dozen of countries have stepped in. Outstanding investment in the area include the Yadana gas field project in the gulf of Mottama and the Yetagun off the Tanintharyi coast.

The Yadana involves multi-national companies of PTTEP (Thailand) , TOTAL (France), UNOCAL (United States) and MOGE (Myanmar), while the Yetagun involves PTTEP (Thailand), Petronas (Malaysia), Nippon (Japan) and MOGE (Myanmar).

With three large offshore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar possesses a total of 87 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 2.46 trillion cubic-meters (TCM) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve, official statistics said.

The figures show that in the fiscal year of 2004-05 which ended in March, Myanmar produced 7.48 million barrels of crude oil and 10.69 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas. Gas export during the year went to 9.5 BCM, earning over 1 billion U.S. dollars.

The statistics also indicate that since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such investment in the oil and gas sector had reached 2.61 billion dollars as of the end of 2005, dominating the country's foreign investment sectorally.

Foreign oil companies engaged in the oil and gas sector are mainly from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.

Source: Xinhua