More gas found in Thai-engaged offshore block in Myanmar

More natural gas deposit has been found at a block in the Mottama offshore area of Myanmar where a Thai company, the PTTEP, is engaged in exploration of gas, the local Weekly Eleven News reported Tuesday.

Huge amount of gas was found early this month at the Zawtika-2 test well, south of the block M-9, the PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd of Thailand was quoted as saying.

It was the fourth test well that the Thai company had drilled at the block down to a depth of 3,500 meters after Zawtika-1, Gawthaka-1 and Karkonna-1 from where gas has been found yielding.

According to the Thai company, the present Zawtika-2 test well had a gas flow rate of 109.5 million cubic-feet (3.1 million cubic-meters) per day, the highest rate of all the wells so far drilled.

Some four to five more test wells will be continued for drilling throughout this year at the block for both domestic demand and export to Thailand and the production is said to formally start in the year 2011 or 2012.

The Zawtika-2 test well lies adjacent to the Yadana and Yedagun oil fields in the Mottama offshore areas where the Thai company has been engaged in similar undertaking.

The PTTEP has already been engaged in five gas projects in Myanmar mainly in the Mottama offshore area's blocks M-7, M-9, M-3, M-4 and M-11.

Myanmar has abundance of natural gas resources especially in the offshore areas. With three main large offshore oil and gas fields and 19 onshore ones, Myanmar has proven recoverable reserve of 18.012 trillion cubic-feet (TCF) or 510 billion cubic- meters (BCM) out of 89.722 TCF or 2.54 trillion cubic-meters (TCM) 's estimated reserve of offshore and onshore gas, experts said.

The country is also estimated to have 3.2 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserve, official statistics indicate.

The Myanmar figures also show that in the fiscal year 2005-06, the country produced 7.962 million barrels of crude oil and 11.45 BCM of gas. Gas export during the year went to 9.138 BCM, earning over 1 billion US dollars.

Other statistics reveal that foreign investment in Myanmar's oil and gas sector had reached 2.668 billion dollars as of September 2006 since the country opened to such investment in late 1988, dominating the country's foreign investment sectorally.

Currently, 13 foreign oil companies, mainly from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Russia, are operating 33 onshore and offshore projects in Myanmar, official sources disclosed.

Source: Xinhua