Regional LNG: Myanmar tends to choose terminal not pipeline for exporting gas to India

Myanmar is tending to take an option of building a terminal in the country's western Rakhine state instead of a pipeline for exporting natural gas from huge reserves discovered there to neighboring India, the local Myanmar Times reported Monday.

Quoting Deputy Minister of Energy Brigadier-General Than Htay, the report disclosed that the option is being considered by the four partners of an Indo-Korean consortium which is developing the large gas deposit found early this year at block A-1, also known as the Shwe Field, off the Rakhine coast.

The 3-billion-US-dollar terminal project, which would have an annual production capacity of 3 million tons of liquefied gas, is likely to start in 2005 and take two years to complete, the deputy minister implied.

The other option is an undersea pipeline that would transit gas to India's West Bengal state through Bangladesh. The designing pipeline project has been negotiated among nations concerned for several years, but agreement has yet to be reached.

Meanwhile, it is reported that Bangladeshi authorities is deliberating to allow laying of the pipeline across its territory.

The Shwe field, which holds a total of up to 14 trillion cubic- feet (TCF) or 396.2 billion cubic-meters of gas, is being mainly developed by the Daewoo. The Daewoo has a 60-percent stake under a production sharing contract, while another South Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) possesses 10 percent and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Gas Authority of India (GAI) 20 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's natural gas produced from the Yadana field in the gulf of Mottama and the Yetagun field off Tanintharyi coast has been supplied to neighboring Thailand to a total of 1 billion cubic-feet (28.31 million cubic-meters) per day since 1998 and 2000 respectively, meeting one-third of Thailand's gas demand.

According to official estimation, Myanmar has a total of 87 TCF (2.46 trillion cubic-meters) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve as well as 711 million tons of coal as of April 2003. (*)