The oil and natural gas sector is dominating Myanmar's foreign investment with 2.635 billion U.S. dollars out of a total of 7.785 billion dollars of contracted foreign investment as of January this year since 1988 when the country opened to such investment, according to the latest statistics of the Foreign Investment Commission.

The investment in the oil and gas sector, which involves 71 foreign oil companies, is followed by manufacturing, hotels and tourism, real estate and mining.

Despite rich land resources, Myanmar's agricultural sector drew the least amount of foreign investment of 34.35 million dollars. About 70 percent of Myanmar's population depend on agriculture.

With three main large offshore and 19 onshore oil and gas fields, Myanmar possesses a total of 87 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 2.46 trillion cubic-meters (TCM) of gas reserve and 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve, official statistics show.

The latest official figures show that in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2005-2006 which ended in March, Myanmar generated 2.1 million barrels of crude oil and 2.98 billion cubic meters ( BCM) of gas. Gas export during the period was registered as 3.227 BCM with an earning of 359 million dollars.

In the fiscal year of 2004-2005, Myanmar produced 7.48 million barrels of crude oil and 10.69 BCM of gas. Gas export during the year went to 9.5 BCM, earning over 1 billion U.S. dollars mainly through the export.

Thailand's PTTEP and Malaysia's Petronas stood as the two largest investors in Myanmar's oil and gas sector. Others are from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea.

Source: Xinhua