Another one British-Virgin-Island- based company and one Singapore company will conduct oil and natural gas exploration in Myanmar's western offshore areas, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Thursday.

Under the production sharing contracts signed with the state- run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) under the Ministry of Energy in Nay Pyi Taw Tuesday, the Rimbunan Petrogas Ltd, based in British Virgin Islands, and the IGE Pte Ltd of Singapore will carry out the undertakings at block A off the Rakhine coast, the report said.

Last month, a British-Virgin-Island-based oil company -- the MRPL E and P Pte Ltd, reached a production sharing contract with the MOGE to explore and produce oil and gas at Block A-6 off the same Rakhine coast.

There have been a number of foreign oil companies exploring gas in the Rakhine offshore area in recent years. These companies include a consortium, led by South Korea's Daewoo International Corporation with 60-percent stake. Other companies go to South Korea Gas Corporation, ONGC Videsh Ltd of India and Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL).

The consortium has found gas deposits at Block A-1 and Block A- 3 off the Rakhine coast in January 2004 and April 2005 respectively.

The Shwe field holds a gas reserve of 4 to 6 TCF or 113.2 to 170 BCM, while the Shwephyu 5 TCF and the Mya 2 TCF with a combined proven reserve of 5.7 to 10 TCF being estimated by experts.

In December last year, the GAIL of India and the Silver Wave Energy of Singapore signed a contract with the MOGE to conduct oil and gas exploration and production at Block A-7 also in the Rakhine offshore area.

Again in January this year, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) International Ltd of China and the MOGE also signed a contract to explore oil and gas at three deep-sea blocks AD-1, AD-6 and AD-8 off the same Rakhine coast which cover a total area of about 10,000 square-kilometers.

Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources in the offshore areas. With three main large offshore oil and gas fields and 19 onshore ones, Myanmar has proven recoverable reserve of 18.012 TCF or 510 billion cubic-meters (BCM) out of 89.722 TCF or 2.54 trillion cubic-meters (TCM)'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, official statistics indicate.

The Myanmar figures also show that in the fiscal year 2005-06 which ended in March, the country produced 7.962 million barrels of crude oil and 11.45 BCM of gas. Gas export during the year went to 9.138 BCM, earning over 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Available statistics reveal that such investment in Myanmar's oil and gas sector had reached 2.635 billion dollars as of March, the end of the fiscal year 2005-06, since the country opened to foreign investment in late 1988, dominating the country's foreign investment sectorally.

Source: Xinhua