Myanmar plans to put over 20 offshore oil and gas exploration blocks up for auction by April as the country pushes to attract foreign investment and expertise to help overcome an energy deficit that’s a legacy of gas export deals made by its former military rulers.
Myanmar produces more than enough natural gas, which is its primary source of energy after biomass, to meet domestic needs. But it exports about 80 percent of the 1.2 to 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas it produces each day to Thailand under contracts signed by Myanmar’s old authoritarian military rulers.
A new gas pipeline to China, which may not be able to commence operations in June as scheduled because of a recent outbreak of violence in Myanmar’s northeast, would initially send an additional 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day out of the country. Eventually, that could rise to 1.2 billion cubic feet per day, government officials said.
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