Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Korean company, Daewoo International Corporation, has started drilling for gas and oil in two different areas off the Arakan coast.
Daewoo will ‘launch production of gas at the Shwe Project by 2013’, according to the paper.
The company commenced drilling in the Shwe, Shwe Phyu and Mya fields in blocks A1 and A3 under an agreement with the military-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise under the Burmese Ministry of Energy, the state-backed newspaper ‘New Light of Myanmar’ reported on Sunday.
POSCO (Pohang Iron and Steel Company), the world’s third largest steel maker, acquired Daewoo in August 2010 for a reported US$ 2.8 billion, Reuters recently reported. In a statement released by POSCO this January, it claimed that ‘Daewoo International is currently investing $4.7 to $4.8 billion in Myanmar’.
Burma’s Minister of Energy Lun Thi attended a launch ceremony on the Japanese-owned Hakuryu-5 rig in block A-3 off the Arakan coast on Sunday and heard Daewoo’s senior vice president of exploration and production in Burma, Si-Bo Joo, report on preparations for drilling.
According to the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, blocks A1 and A3 contain 5.353 trillion cubic feet of gas, reportedly one of the largest gas reserves in Southeast Asia.
The minister called on Daewoo to ensure completion of the oil wells on schedule, for general safety measures to be taken and for ‘preparedness measures against possible natural disasters,’ the state-backed newspaper reported.
Once production is launched in 2013, all of the gas resources will be sold to the China National United Oil Corporation, according to a POSCO statement.
Daewoo owns 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe gas project. The other shareholders in the project are India’s National Natural Gas Clearinghouse, 17 percent; Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise,15 percent; Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), 8.5 percent; and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, 8.5 percent, according to Arakan Oil Watch, an NGO. KOGAS is a Korean state-owned company and is the world’s largest buyer of liquified natural gas.
Fourteen members of Daewoo International, including the then chairman Lee Tae-Yong, were convicted in a Korean court in 2007 for conspiring to illegally export weapons to the Burmese military regime and for their involvement of the construction of an arms factory, the Irrawaddy magazine reported in 2007.
A consumer advocate, Wong Aung, a co-ordinator of the Shwe Gas Movement, told Mizzima that Daewoo has not disclosed ample information about the Shwe pipeline project and its impact at the grassroots level.
‘They never mention about the pipeline project and its impact’, he said. He said the company has not followed international guidelines and standards, and ‘there is a lack of disclosure on their policies’.
Issues his advocacy group are concerned with include forced relocation and land confiscation. ‘A lot of the local people involuntarily leave their lands, and most of the landowners do not receive compensation’, he said.
‘All of the gas is going to be exported to China’, he added. ‘People have a right to demand accountability in this kind of project’.
Source:http://mizzima.com/business/4905-daewoo-starts-drilling-on-shwe-gas-project.html
Daewoo will ‘launch production of gas at the Shwe Project by 2013’, according to the paper.
The company commenced drilling in the Shwe, Shwe Phyu and Mya fields in blocks A1 and A3 under an agreement with the military-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise under the Burmese Ministry of Energy, the state-backed newspaper ‘New Light of Myanmar’ reported on Sunday.
POSCO (Pohang Iron and Steel Company), the world’s third largest steel maker, acquired Daewoo in August 2010 for a reported US$ 2.8 billion, Reuters recently reported. In a statement released by POSCO this January, it claimed that ‘Daewoo International is currently investing $4.7 to $4.8 billion in Myanmar’.
Burma’s Minister of Energy Lun Thi attended a launch ceremony on the Japanese-owned Hakuryu-5 rig in block A-3 off the Arakan coast on Sunday and heard Daewoo’s senior vice president of exploration and production in Burma, Si-Bo Joo, report on preparations for drilling.
According to the ‘New Light of Myanmar’, blocks A1 and A3 contain 5.353 trillion cubic feet of gas, reportedly one of the largest gas reserves in Southeast Asia.
The minister called on Daewoo to ensure completion of the oil wells on schedule, for general safety measures to be taken and for ‘preparedness measures against possible natural disasters,’ the state-backed newspaper reported.
Once production is launched in 2013, all of the gas resources will be sold to the China National United Oil Corporation, according to a POSCO statement.
Daewoo owns 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe gas project. The other shareholders in the project are India’s National Natural Gas Clearinghouse, 17 percent; Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise,15 percent; Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), 8.5 percent; and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, 8.5 percent, according to Arakan Oil Watch, an NGO. KOGAS is a Korean state-owned company and is the world’s largest buyer of liquified natural gas.
Fourteen members of Daewoo International, including the then chairman Lee Tae-Yong, were convicted in a Korean court in 2007 for conspiring to illegally export weapons to the Burmese military regime and for their involvement of the construction of an arms factory, the Irrawaddy magazine reported in 2007.
A consumer advocate, Wong Aung, a co-ordinator of the Shwe Gas Movement, told Mizzima that Daewoo has not disclosed ample information about the Shwe pipeline project and its impact at the grassroots level.
‘They never mention about the pipeline project and its impact’, he said. He said the company has not followed international guidelines and standards, and ‘there is a lack of disclosure on their policies’.
Issues his advocacy group are concerned with include forced relocation and land confiscation. ‘A lot of the local people involuntarily leave their lands, and most of the landowners do not receive compensation’, he said.
‘All of the gas is going to be exported to China’, he added. ‘People have a right to demand accountability in this kind of project’.
Source:http://mizzima.com/business/4905-daewoo-starts-drilling-on-shwe-gas-project.html
Comments
Post a Comment