Energy ministers of Myanmar, India and Bangladesh have agreed in Yangon in principle on laying a gas pipeline to bring exporting natural gas from Myanmar to India through Bangladesh, leaving some specific matters to be continued for negotiation, diplomatic sources said Friday.

The principled agreement was obtained after a two-day tripartite meeting of Brigadier-General Lun Thi representing Myanmar, Mani Shankar Aiyer India and Mosharraf Hossain Bangladesh.

Although a formal agreement on the proposed 290-kilometer pipeline was not signed as predicted earlier, it is expected that such agreement will produce in the near future through continued negotiation, observers here said.

With India standing as a prospective buyer of the Myanmar gas, the over-1-billion-US-dollar pipeline under negotiation is designed to transit export gas from a newly developed gas field called Shwe Field off Myanmar's western Rakhine coast to India's West Bengal state through Bangladesh which is likely to earn about150 million dollars annually in transit fees from the proposed project.

The overall pipeline route, outlined as Rakhine(Myanmar)-Mizoram and Tripura states(India)-Bangladesh-West Bengal(India), was one of several options India had deliberated to bring the Myanmar gas from the Shwe field.

Huge natural gas deposit was found early last year at Block A-1off the Rakhine coast when explored since 2000 by the South Koreancompany of Daewoo in partnership with South Korea Gas Corporation and the ONGC Videsh Ltd and Gas Authority of India respectively holding 60 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent.

The field holds a gas reserve of 4 to 6 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 113.2 to 170 billion cubic-meters (BCM). The whole block is estimated to yield up to 14 TCF (396.2 BCM) of gas.

Meanwhile, expected gas discovered from another block A-3 adjacent to A-1, being also explored by the consortium, will also be covered by India's import plan.

According to official estimation, Myanmar has a total of 87 TCF(2.46 TCM) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve in the country's offshore and onshore areas.

The Central Statistical Organization statistics show that Myanmar produced 9.9 BCM of gas and 7.16 million barrels of crude oil in the fiscal year 2003-04.

Gas export during the year went to5.66 BCM, earning nearly 600 million dollars, while crude oil import worth 13.18 million dollars the same year.

Since Myanmar opened to foreign investment in late 1988, such investment in the sector had reached 2.5 billion dollars as of thebeginning of 2004, the figures also reveal. Foreign oil companies engaged in the oil and gas sector mainly include those from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.

Source: Xinhua