Myanmar, Russia, India to explore gas in Myanmar

Oil companies of Myanmar, Russia and India have agreed to explore oil and natural gas at a block lying off the Mottama offshore area, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday.

Under a production sharing contract initiated by the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, JSC Zarubezhneft Itera Oil and Gas Company of the Russian Federation and the Sun Group of India, the three companies will conduct oil and gas exploration and production at block M-8 in the offshore area.

It is the first time that the Russian Federation gets involved in the oil and gas development in Myanmar, while India has been engaged in the sector with two Indian companies of the ONGC Videsh Ltd and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) working in partnership with South Korea's Daewoo International and South Korean Gas Corporation in offshore gas exploitation at two blocks of A-1 and A-3 off the western Rakhine coast.

In that project, Daewoo holds a 60-percent stake, while ONGC Videsh Ltd 20 percent, GAIL 10 percent and other South Korea Gas Corporation 10 percent.

Negotiation is underway over a pipeline project for India to import gas to its West Bengal state from the two blocks which are estimated to hold a recoverable gas reserve of 5.7-10 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) according to Daewoo.

Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources especially in the offshore areas. With three main large offshore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar has proven recoverable reserve of 18. 012 TCF out of 89.722 TCF's estimated reserve of offshore and onshore gas, experts said.

The country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve, according to an official statistics.

The Myanmar figures also showed that in the first 11 months ( April-February) of the fiscal year 2005-06, the country produced 7. 281 million barrels of crude oil and 10.53 billion cubic meters ( BCM) of gas. Gas export during the 11-month period went to 8.06 BCM, earning 942 million U.S. dollars.

More statistics also revealed that since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such investment in the oil and gas sector reached 2.635 billion dollars as of January this year, dominating the country's foreign investment sectorally.

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

Source: Xinhua