BVI-registered Company to Explore Gas Fields in Myanmar
The official newspaper of Myanmar reported on Thursday, 8 February 2007 that a BVI-registered company and a Singapore company are planning oil and natural gas exploration in Myanmar’s western offshore areas. The Rimbunan Petrogas Ltd., based in the British Virgin Islands, and the IGE Pte Ltd of Singapore, are said to carry out the undertakings at block A of the Rakhine coast, under the production sharing contracts signed with the state Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), under the Ministry of Energy.
Last month, another BVI-based oil company – the MRPLE and P Pte Ltd, have reached a production sharing contract with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, for exploration and production of oil and gas at Block A-6 off the same Rakhine coast.
There have been some foreign oil companies exploring gas in the Rakhine offshore area in recent years – including a consortium led by South Korea’s Daewoo International Corporation with 60% stake. The consortium has found gas deposits at Block A-1 and Block A-3 off the Rakhine coast in January 2004 and April 2005.
In January 2007, 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 that Rakhine coast, which cover a total area of about 10,000 square kilometers.
It should be noted that Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources in the offshore areas. There are three large off-shore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields in Myanmar. The country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve.
The statistics reveals that foreign investments in Myanmar’s oil and gas sector had reached 2.635 billion dollars as of March, the end of the fiscal year 2005-2006, since the country opened to foreign investment in the end of 1988. It is also figured out that in the same fiscal year 2005-2006 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.