Bids for Myanmar Offshore Gas Project Construction to Be Invited

Bids for Myanmar offshore gas project construction to be invited YANGON, March 29 (Xinhua) — A Myanmar major gas project being undertaken by an international consortium, led by a giant South Korean oil company, is making arrangement to invite tendering for pipeline construction with its gas development project in three gas fields in western Myanmar’s offshore Rakhine state, a local weekly reported Saturday.

Quoting a recent release of the Daewoo International Corporation, the Voice said the building of the pipelines will be undertaken at the Shwe, Shwephyu and Mya gas fields covered by blocks A-1 and A- 3.

According to the report, other South-Korea-based Hontai and Samsung companies as well as China-based COOEC and CNOOC are interested in the project.

Of them, the Chinese companies have agreed with Myanmar in buying gas produced from the blocks and the exporting gas will be transported through pipelines, Daewoo’s release was also quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the consortium will also make study and preparations in the second half of next month with regard to gas production in the two blocks, it said.

The three gas fields in the two offshore blocks are expected to be able to yield gas in commercial scale by 2010, the sources added..

Natural gas deposits were found at block A-1 (Shwe field and Shwephyu field) and block A-3 (Mya field) in the Rakhine offshore area in January 2004 and April 2005 respectively, explored by the consortium of oil companies led by Daewoo with 60 percent-stake. Other companies go to South Korea Gas Corporation (10 percent), ONGC Videsh Ltd of India (20 percent) and GAIL (10 percent).

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

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 (510 BCM) out of 89.722 TCF (2.54 TCM) ‘s estimated reserve of offshore and onshore gas, experts said, adding that the country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve.

According to the Central Statistical Organization, in the fiscal year 2006-07, Myanmar produced 7.707 million barrels of crude oil and 13.039 BCM of gas. Gas export during the year went to 13.028 BCM, gaining 2.03 billion U.S. dollars.

The latest figures indicate that in the first half of 2007-08 ending March, the country’s crude oil production amounted to 3.857 million barrels, while its gas output 6.74 BCM. Gas export was registered at 9.17 BCM during the period, obtaining 1.531 billion dollars.

More statistics reveal that foreign investment in Myanmar’s oil and gas sector had reached 3.243 billion dollars in 85 projects as of the end of 2007 since the country opened to such investment in late 1988, standing the second in the country’s foreign investment sectorally after electric power.

Currently, 13 foreign oil companies, mainly from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Russia, are involved in oil and gas projects in Myanmar, according to official sources.

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