Two oil companies respectively based in British Virgin Island (BVI) and Singapore will conduct oil and natural gas exploration in Myanmar's Mottama offshore area, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Sunday.

Under a production sharing contract signed with the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) under the Ministry of Energy in Nay Pyi Taw Friday, the BVI-based Rimbunan Petrogas Ltd and the Singapore-based UNOG Pte Ltd will carry out the undertakings at block M-1 in the offshore area, the report said.

There are also some blocks in the Mottama offshore area namely M-7, M-9, M-3, M-4 and M-11 under gas exploration by the PTTEP of Thailand.

In January, the BVI company reached a production sharing contract with the MOGE to explore and produce oil and gas at block A-6 off the western Rakhine coast which was said to cover an area of about 9,830 square-kilometers.

Other blocks such as A-1 and A-3 off the Rakhine coast are being developed by a consortium headed by South Korea's Daewoo International, in which Daewoo holds a 60-percent stake, while South Korea Gas Corporation 10 percent, ONGC Videsh Ltd of India 20 percent and Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) 10 percent.

The consortium has found gas deposits at Block A-1 (Shwe field and the Shwephyu field) and Block A-3 (Mya field) 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 especially 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