A technical committee comprising energy officials of Myanmar, India and Bangladesh will meet here later this month to deliberate alternative options for ways of transporting Myanmar export gas to India, the local news journal Myanmar Times reported Monday.

Some media reports once said India was seriously considering to redesign the gas pipeline to run entirely through Indian territory bypassing Bangladesh.

In fact, negotiation has been underway among the three countries ever since the beginning for laying the gas pipeline to transit export gas from a newly developed gas field at Block A-1 off Myanmar's western Rakhine coast to India's West Bengal state via Bangladesh, energy sources said.

The technical meeting would be a follow-up of a bilateral meeting between Myanmar and Indian energy ministers in New Delhi on July 6, according to which India would continue to negotiate with Bangladesh for working out an agreement on a trilateral pipeline, while Myanmar and India agreed that such trilateral pipeline is the best option for the transmission of Myanmar gas.

The original over 1-billion-US-dollar project proposal was that the pipeline is to run through the Rakhine state in Myanmar via the Indian states of Mizoran and Tripura before crossing Bangladesh to Kolkata.

Bangladesh, however, tagged three-point proposal with the tri- nation pipeline project that includes reduction of trade imbalance, providing corridor for Nepalese goods to Bangladeshi ports, access to hydroelectric power in Bhutan and collection of about 125 million dollars in transit fee from the project.

The energy ministers of the three countries agreed in principle in Yangon in January this year on the laying of the 290-kilometer gas pipeline. However, a formal signing of the agreement has been delayed up to now.

Huge natural gas deposit was found early last year at Block A-1 off the Rakhine coast when explored since 2000 by a consortium of foreign oil companies led by South Korea's Daewoo, in which it holds 60 percent, South Korea Gas Corporation 10 percent, the ONGC Videsh Ltd of India 20 percent and Gas Authority of India 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, One more Indian company, the Essar Oil Ltd, has reached a contract with Myanmar to undertake gas exploration activities at Block A-2 in the Rakhine offshore area and Block-L in the coastal region of Sittway.

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 to 5.66 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 the beginning 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