MYANMAR’S state oil company is to explore offshore oil and gas in a joint venture with two Vietnam companies, state media reported on October 4.

It allows the companies to explore supplies in the Gulf of Martaban, south of Myanmar in the Andaman Sea.

Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) under the Ministry of Energy signed the deal September 30 with Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corporation and Joint Venture Vietsovpetro (VSP) of Vietnam and Myanmar’s Eden Group, according to the reports.

The production-sharing contract is for the Mottama M-2 offshore block.
Under the contract, Petrovietnam will hold 45 a percent stake, VSP 40pc and the Eden group 15pc.

The ceremony took place at the Myanmar Ministry of Energy in the Myanmar capital Nay Pyi Taw. It was witnessed by the Minister of Energy, Brigadier General Lun Thi, ministers and senior officials from the Myanmar government.

Also present were Petrovietnam representatives and officials from the Vietnamese Ministries of Industry and Trade, Foreign Affairs and Planning and Investment.

The deal is Vietnam’s first oil and gas project in Myanmar and its second overseas. The first, in Tunisia, was signed by Perovietnam and VSP in February this year.

Myanmar and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and gas co-operation when Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dungin visited Myanmar in August 2007.

Block M-2 covers about 10,000 square kilometres and is about 200 kilometres from the former capital of Yangon.

In South Africa, an official from Thailand’s top energy firm PTTEP said on October 8 the company expected its M-9 natural gas project in Myanmar to be completed by the end of 2011.

“It will be done by the end of 2011,” Asdakorn Limpiti, vice president in PTTEP’s strategy and capability development division, said at the Africa Upstream 2008 oil conference in Cape Town.

The M-9 is one of five offshore blocks in the Martaban Gulf operated by PTTEP, about 66 percent owned by PTT PCL PTT.BK, under a 25-year concession awarded by the Myanmar government. The US$2 billion project is located about 300 kilometres south of Yangon.

Negotiations between Thailand and Myanmar over gas supplies from the prospective field, however, have been hampered by events in Myanmar.
A deal on natural gas from Block M-9 between the two countries is expected to be finalised by the end of this year.

– AFP, Vietnam News, Reuters