Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, is a developing country and an important

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

and

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

producer in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. It is home to one of the world's oldest petroleum industries, with its first crude oil exports dating back to 1853. Today, the country is one of the major

producers in the Asian continent.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/393763/UKTI_Burma_-_Oil_and_Gas_Report_-_Jan_2015.pdf Decades of isolation, sanctions, a lack of technical capacity, opaque government policies and insufficient investment has impeded the country's efforts to develop an upstream hydrocarbon sector. Recent but slow political reform has led the international community to ease sanctions on Burma, giving rise to hopes of greater investment and economic growth. In 2015-2016, the petroleum industry attracted the highest-ever amount (USD 4.8 billion) of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the history of Myanmar.

History

Early British explorers in Burma discovered a flourishing oil extraction industry in the town of

Yenangyaung Yenangyaung ( my, ရေနံချောင်း; literally "stream of oil") is a city in the Magway Region of central Myanmar, located on the Irrawaddy River and 363 miles from Yangon. Until 1974, it remained the capital city of both Minbu Div ...

in 1795. The area had hundreds of hand-dug oil wells under the hereditary control of 24 Burmese families. British Burma exported its first barrel of crude oil in 1853. The

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based

Burmah Oil Company The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed "Burmah-Castrol". BP Amoco (now BP) purchased the company in 2000. History ...

(BOC) was established in 1871 and began production in the Yenangyaung field in 1887 and the Chauk field in 1902. BOC enjoyed a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

in the sector until 1901, when the American Standard Oil Company launched operations in Burma. Oil supplies largely met the demand of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the

Japanese invasion of Burma The Japanese invasion of Burma was the opening phase of the Burma campaign in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, which took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign (December 1941 to mid-1942) ...

, oil production stood at 6.5 million barrels annually.http://www.myanmar-oilgas.com/OilGas/media/Site_Images/Day-2-AM-1-EPD-Petroleum-Sector-Prospects.pdf After independence in 1948, the oil wells had dried up after decades of British extraction. In 1963, the socialist military government led by Ne Win

nationalize Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

d the sector, causing decades of economic stagnation. After 1989, the military junta began opening up the country to more foreign investment.

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

discovered the Apyauk gas field 50 kilometres northwest of

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

in 1991.

Current status

Myanmar is today primarily a

producer. As of 2015, Myanmar exports gas to

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

and China. Myanmar had proven gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet in 2012, with an annual production capacity of 416 BcF. Oil reserves in 2013 numbered at 50 million barrels, with a production capacity of 21,000 bbl/d. The Yenangyaung oil field continues to be in operation. The country has classified 51 onshore blocks and 53 offshore blocks, including 26 deep water blocks, for oil and gas exploration. The National Energy Management Committee regulates the sector under the

Ministry of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-rel ...

. The industry consists of three key state players: *

Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise ( my, မြန်မာ့ရေနံနှင့် သဘာဝဓါတ်ငွေ့လုပ်ငန်း; abbreviated MOGE) is a national oil and gas company of Myanmar. It was established in 1963. MOG ...

, created in 1963; responsible for exploration, production and domestic gas transmission through a 1,200-mile onshore pipeline network. * Myanma Petrochemicals Enterprise, operates small refineries and fertilizer plants * Myanmar Petroleum Products Enterprise, responsible for retail and wholesale distribution of petroleum products Major international oil companies (IOCs) engaged in Myanmar include

TotalEnergies TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and ...

, the

Essar Group Essar Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company, founded by Shashi Ruia and Ravi Ruia in 1969. As Essar Global Fund Limited (EGFL), the company controls a number of assets across the core sectors of energy (oil refining, oil a ...

CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC Group ( Chinese: 中国海洋石油总公司 Pinyin: ''Zhōngguó Háiyáng Shíyóu Zǒnggōngsī''), is one of the largest national oil companies in China, and the third-largest national oil ...

PTTEP PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited ( th, บริษัท ปตท. สำรวจและผลิตปิโตรเลียม จำกัด (มหาชน)), also known as PTTEP, is a national petroleum explora ...

, Petronas and

Sinopec China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (中国石油化工股份有限公司) or Sinopec (), is a Chinese oil and gas enterprise based in Beijing. It is listed in Hong Kong and also trades in Shanghai. Sinopec Limited's parent, Sinopec ...

. After some of the sanctions were lifted in 2012, many international investors such as for instance British Gas, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ENI, Oil India, Ophir, PetroVietnam, Shell, Statoil, and Woodside entered Myanmar's petroleum market. Local companies such as Parami Energy Group and MPRL are some who are leading players in this field. According to Kwong Weng Yap, Chief Operating Officer of Parami, he said in a speech to the

ASEAN ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...

community that the Myanmar oil and gas industry requires a clean government and local inclusion for it to be sustainable in the near term. The downstream distribution network in Myanmar remains very under-developed with limited access to foreigners.

Conflict and Controversy

The natural gas on shore extraction sites have been areas of continued human rights violations against local ethnic groups. The modern oil and gas reforms entrenched historical wealth inequality built on a legacy of corruption, ethnic inequality, and systemic sexism promoted through the Tatmadaw’s State and Peace Development Council (1988-2010), which resulted in 20 families re-branding themselves as Urban Elites seeking foreign investment during market liberalisation efforts around 2013. The scramble to open up Burma for business has played a direct role in inflaming community tensions. One of the most prominent culprits is the Shwe Gas Project led by South Korean and Indian companies, to export natural gas via pipeline from Arakan state to China's Yunnan province. The 2,800 km overland pipeline is slated to become operational this year. The project plans to produce 500 million cubic feet (mcfd) of gas per day for 30 years, supplying 400 mcfd to China, and the remaining 100 mcfd to factories owned by the Burmese government, military and associated business elites. The losers from this venture are the Burmese people and environment. An extensive report by the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM), a Burmese community-based human rights network, documented the destruction of local fishing and farming industries, including confiscation of thousands of acres of land to "clear areas for the pipeline and associated infrastructure", from 2010 to 2011. Tens of thousands have been left jobless, with little or no compensation or employment opportunities. In 2021, a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...

took place, removing

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (; ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2 ...

with a military junta. In 4 February 2021, French oil multinational

(known as Total S.A. at the time) announced it was reviewing the impact of the coup on its domestic operations and projects. The company would later issue a statement on April that it would not withhold payments to the military junta and would not cease operations in its Yadana offshore gasfield. On 22 January 2022, TotalEnergies and Chevron would later announce its departure from Myanmar in response to the human rights abuses from the military junta. TotalEnergies also calls for sanctions in response to such actions in Myanmar.

References

{{Asia topic, Petroleum industry in Energy in Myanmar

Petroleum in Myanmar

History

Current status

Conflict and Controversy

See also

References