| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
advertisement | ||
Thursday August 16, 7:32 PMMyanmar confirms agreement to sell gas to ChinaYANGON, August 16 (Reuters) - Myanmar has had agreed to sell gas from its A-1 and A-3 blocks to China, a major ally but not a stakeholder in the blocks, a senior Energy Ministry official said on Thursday."Yes, we have decided to sell the gas from A-1 and A-3 to China and details are under negotiation. Once we reach an agreement, we will go ahead," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "If everything goes well, the gas from these offshore blocks will be sold to China through a pipeline," he added, refusing to give further details. A senior Indian official said earlier this week Myanmar had decided in favour of China, but Thursday's comments were the first confirmation of that from Myanmar. The A-1 and A-3 fields off the Rakhine coast have proven reserves of 5.7 to 10 trillion cubic feet with up to 8.6 TCF recoverable, according to assessments by the U.S.-based international certification agency GCA. South Korea's Daewoo International Corp. , which had proposed building an LNG plant in Rakhine, has a 60 percent stake in the blocks. Korea Gas Corporation has 10 percent, India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation 20 percent and Indian natural gas utility GAIL has the other 10 percent. Three energy hungry neighbours, India, China and Thailand, have been bidding to buy the gas from A-1 and A-3 through pipelines. Myanmar has at least 90 TCF of gas reserves and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves in 19 onshore and three major offshore fields. Altogether, 25 offshore blocks are under exploration, 12 of them in the Gulf of Martaban, six off the Tanintharyi coast and seven off the Rakhine coast. Companies from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, and Thailand have reached agreements with the government on exploration for gas and oil. |
|||
|
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Reuters Limited
|