Some weeks ago we wrote about the two foreign companies, registered in the British Virgin Islands and in Singapore, which were planning oil and natural gas exploration in Myanmar’s western offshore areas.
Now, the new contracts continue to be signed despite condemnation of the ruling military regime by western countries, for its bad record of human rights and lack of democracy. As a result, in recent years the European Union and the United States have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar. Also, the investments of the BVI-registered Rimbunan Petrogas Ltd. and the Singapore-based MRPLE and P Pte Ltd. with the state Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) were urged to be banned, by the initiative of activists from the human rights group Burma Campaign UK, based in London.
However, on Saturday it was announced that the BVI company Rimbunan Petrogas Ltd. and UNOG Pte Ltd, formed in Singapore, have signed another production-sharing contract for exploration, drilling and production of oil and gas in Block M-1 in the Mottama offshore area of southern Myanmar. Financial details of the contract did not become public.
BVI company Rimbunan Petrogas is run by Malaysian businessman Tan Sri Tiong Hiew King, who is listed in the latest issue of Forbes magazine as one of “The World’s Billionairesâ€. The same top executive also heads the Rimbunan Hijau Group, a major logging conglomerate, part of which is Rimbunan Petrogas.
Myanmar liberalised its investment code in the end of 1988, and attracted its largest foreign investments in the energy sector. By official data, on January the amount of foreign direct investment in Myanmar was $14.4 billion for 408 projects, of which 79 projects worth $2.94 billion were in the oil and gas sector.