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Bkk articles 13 Sept (part 2)



 
The Bangkok Post Tuesday September 13, 1004
Business Section
 
PTTEP PREPARED TO TAKE UP TO 30% STAKE IN BURMA GAS 
FIELD
by Boontong Kositchotethana
Rangoon
 
PTT Exploration & Production Plc (PTTEP), an affiliate of the Petroleum 
Authority of Thailand (PTT), will exercise an option to take up to 30% of 
the US$800-million Yadana gas field development offshore Burma. 
 
PTTEP president Viset Choopiban confirmed PTTEP's stance in an 
interview with Business Post following the conclusion of a landmark 
accord for sales of the Yadana gas to Thailand. 
 
Mr Viset said the Thai petroleum exploration concern had "no 
problems" with taking a maximum equity participation in the project if 
Burma's state energy firm, Myanma Oil & Gas Enterprise (MOGE), elects 
not to exercise its option. 
 
MOGE has the option to take up to 15%, in Yadana under the 
production-sharing contract with the field's developers Total of France 
and the US energy group Unocal Corp which now hold 52.5% and 
47.5% interest in the gas structures, respectively. 
 
PTTEP was also given the right to acquire a 25.5% participation option, 
a pre-requisite that formed part of the conditions tied to the 30-year 
Yadana gas export sales accord reached by the Burmese Government, 
the western oil group and the gas buyer, PTT. 
 
If both MOGE and PTTEP elect to participate fully, this would reduce 
Total's interest to 31.24% and Unocal's to 28.26%. 
 
"It would be unwise on our part if we didn't take the full option in the 
knowledge that a huge gas reserves are lying there and its buyer has 
been established," said Mr Viset. 
 
He said recoverable gas reserves at Yadana, some 320 kilometres south 
of the Burmese capital in the Gulf of Martaban, had been certified by US 
petroleum reservoir engineers DeGolyer & MacNaughton at 5.8 trillion 
cubic feet (Tcf) nearly twice the size of the Bongkot gas field in the Gulf 
of Thailand. 
 
Investing in the project provides a fairly good 15% internal rate of 
return, Mr Viset added. Yadana gas exports to Thailand are estimated to 
generate annual sales revenue of about 10 billion baht. 
 
The exact size of the stake PTTEP will hold in Yadana will be known 
later this year when the partnership agreement is expected to be signed. 
That will take place at the conclusion of the Yadana gas sales agreement 
between the PTT and Total group, according to Mr Viset. 
 
Yadana will be the latest most significant asset in the PTT's extensive 
interests n the upstream oil and gas sector, mostly in Thailand. 
 
PTTEP's other interests include: 25% of the onshore S1 concession 
where the Sirikit oil field is located; a 20% interest in the E5 tract in the 
Northeast, where Esso is operating the Nam Phong gas field; 5% stake 
in the Unocal III gas-production ventures in the Gulf of Thailand, a 50%, 
stake n highly prospective block B5/27 in the Gulf; and 100% ownership 
of the PTTEP1 tract in Suphan Buri and Nakhon Pathom where two 
marginal oil fields are in production. 
 
It also has a stake in the "Joint Development Area" which covers 7,250 
square kilometres, some 260 km east of Songkhla shore, where Thailand 
and Malaysia have greed to jointly develop resources and equally share 
the wealth. 
 
The tract, believed to contain 3-4 Tcf of gas reserves, will be explored 
by the consortium including PTTEP, Petronas Carigali and the US oil 
prospecting firm Triton Energy Corp, under modified production-
sharing contracts awarded to them last April. 
 
Mr Viset said the $800-million estimated cost of the Yadana project 
included offshore field development and the laying of a 354-km offshore 
pipeline to the western coast of Burma, and a 65-km onshore segment 
across southern Burma to the Thai border at Pilok, Kanchanaburi . 
 
The line will be linked with a 300-km-plus pipeline to be laid from Pilok to 
Ratchaburi where the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand 
(EGAT) will build a 2,800-megawatt gas-fired powerhouse. 
 
By the end of this year, Total and Unocal plan to form a subsidiary to 
build and operate the pipeline, according to Unocal officials. 
Construction of the west-east pipeline is expected to begin in 1995 after 
a full evaluation of onshore route options to minimise environmental 
impact. 
 
Yadana gas production is expected to start in mid-1998 with delivery at 
an initial rate of 130 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd), increasing to 
more than 525 MMcfd within 15 months. Gas production could 
eventually reach 650 MMcfd, including volumes for Burma's domestic 
consumption.
 
 
 
The Nation Tuesday, September 13, 1994
Focus Section
 
A BRIDGE OF MUSIC
One Karen musician hopes the message in his music will create harmony 
from the discord that
exists between the Kingdom's highlanders and lowlanders, reports 
Kitchana Lersakvanitchakul.
 
(PHOTO: MISSIONARY: Leesa on stage at a recent concert by Karen 
musicians in Bangkok.)
 
SINGER Leesa Chuchuenchitsakul has a mission in life: to spread the 
truth about Puagayor, or Karen, hill-tribe people.
 
The Karen singer says he first became inspired to become a musician 
four years ago when he realized many Thai people share a number of 
misconceptions about hill-tribe people. These misconceptions are often 
perpetuated by Thai-language newspapers, which blame the tribes for 
numerous ills including the narcotics trade and deforestation. 
 
Such misunderstandings, he believes, stem from communication 
problems between lowland Thais and hill-tribe people. Through music 
Leesa hopes he can help bring the two groups closer together. 
 
"I would like us [highlanders and lowlanders] to live harmoniously and 
peacefully because we are all Thai," said the 36-year-old musician. 
 
Drugs, he said, are an international problem and should not be blamed 
on any one group. In the past, he admitted -- before the launch of the 
Royal project to persuade hill-tribe villagers to plant vegetables -- it was 
the mountain people who grew opium. But it was the lowlanders who 
were behind opium trafficking, he said. 
 
"We hill-tribe people are also accused of being involved in 
deforestation. In fact, this is not so. The forest is our home, where we 
live and eat. We also believe that spirits live in the forest. Hill-tribe 
people cut down trees only in order to live. But when development 
reached our homes, it was the lowlanders who came to cut the trees 
down to sell,'' he said. 
 
Leesa; who is a sitsayaphibarn, or pastor, at a church in Khun Yuam 
District of Mae Hong Son province, firmly believes people's problems 
should be solved with love, interest and understanding rather than with 
speeches and theories. 
 
With this in mind, he compiled the album Khon Phu Doi (The Mountain 
People), which was recorded last year. Previously Leesa had recorded 
four albums -- two folk and two rock -- with lyrics based on stories from 
the Bible. 
 
The nine-track album, Khon Phu Doi, focuses mostly on the Karen 
lifestyle, and on the natural beauty of forests and animals. "Most 
Puagayor love peace," he stressed. 
 
Leesa wrote the lyrics for the album in Karen, but then had them 
translated into Thai for the recording. He didn't want to isolate Thai-
language listeners, he explained. He wanted his music to be accessible 
to both Karen and lowlanders, and he wanted Thai people to open their 
hearts and ears to Karen songs. However, the album does feature one 
Karen-language song, "Puagayor People". 
 
The singer likes to think of himself as a storyteller, telling stories in 
rhyme, more than a musician. He doesn't read music and he has never 
taken music lessons. He knows only chords used in folk guitar music, 
and for this reason Khon Phu Doi sounds very similar to other Thai folk 
music. 
 
However, for his newest album, Banthuek Khon Ton Nam (Record of 
the Residents of the Watershed), Leesa looked further afield for both 
subject matter and musical content. 
 
In the song "Faak Jai" ("Keep My Heart") he sings about two ethnic 
groups. the Sakai people from the South and the Mlabri, from the North. 
Though they come from opposite ends of the country, he explained, 
they actually share many similarities.
 
Another song, "Khon Phaa Khon" ("Man Cuts Man") depicts the 
changing lifestyles of hill-tribe people in the face of "development" and 
modern technology. He compares this intrusion to a surgical operation 
by which villagers are cut off from their traditional ways of life. 
 
"Kong Faang" ("Haystack") depicts the influence of modern Thai and 
Western culture on the way Karen teenagers dress and act. He said 
nowadays Karen appear confused about how to wear their traditional 
clothes, and sometimes, men wear clothes made for women. 
 
In the past, he continued, children were glad to wear clothes woven for 
them by their parents, but today, they are more likely to prefer ready-
made clothes purchased from stores. 
 
More importantly, though, the song shows how family ties are being 
destroyed by the invasion of modern culture and technology. 
 
On this new album, Leesa said he also wanted to tell Thai people about 
the Daraung, a hill-tribe group living in the Salween region near the 
border with Burma. In the song "Dara-ung", he uses Dara-ung-style folk 
music and instruments such as ti-na (a plucked string instrument) and 
tree leaves, which are blown to produce different notes. 
 
In "Phorlepa", he sings about the 65-year-old Puagayor poet of the 
same name, who he calls a good role model for both Puagayor children 
and all other Thai people. 
 
In order to attract a wider audience, Leesa has actually recorded two 
versions of the new album, one in Thai and the other in Karen. With the 
likes of songs-for-life singers Surachai Chanthimathorn and Yuenyong 
Opakul, the album also sounds similar to them. The actual style of the 
music ranges from songs-for-life to gospel and Karen. 
 
But while Leesa says he enjoys experimenting with different musical 
styles, don't expect to find modern pop music on any of his future 
albums. He calls it aharn hoo, or "food for the ears", meaning that the 
lyrics are senseless, though he admits pop record companies are just 
catering to the tastes of listeners.
 
He also believes there could be a market for hill-tribe folk music if record 
companies could just be convinced to take an interest. After all, he said, 
ethnic music is quite popular in many Western countries. 
 
More importantly, he said, music is the best way to help hill-tribe 
people, because it appeals to people's emotions as well as their minds. 
 
 
*Proceeds from the sale of the new album will help set up a foundation 
to provide medical treatment for hill-tribe people.*
 
 
 
The Nation Tuesday, September 13, 1994
Focus Section
 
MEETING 0F THE TRIBES 
A group of Karen musicians travelled to Bangkok recently to promote 
hill tribe culture. Varapom Chamsanit reports.
 
(PHOTO: Tribal Spokesman: Phorlepa, above, the mountain poet. 
Thongdi, left, dressed in tribal clothes performs on stage in Bangkok.)
 
*We are Puagayor (Karen people). 
Having lived on this highland for ages. 
Forests and mountains are our friends. 
Hawks sing their songs over our land.*
 
THIS verse, written by Puagayor musician Leesa Chuchuenchitsakul 
and sung in the Karen language accompanied by the sounds of 
acoustic guitars, is indeed the self-proclamation of the tribal group, 
Puagayor, or Karen people, the largest hill tribe in Thailand.
 
Although various historical sources show that the mountain ranges in 
the northern and western regions of what is now Thailand have been 
home to the Puagayor several hundred years, very little has been 
recorded in formal Thai history about their existence. 
 
Today, the views held by most lowlanders regarding the various hill 
tribes are overwhelmingly negative: "Hill-tribe people practice slash-
and-burn farming. " "Hill-tribe people destroy forests." "Hill-tribe 
people grow opium plants". 
 
So it was a rare event when, during the first weekend of this month, a 
group of Puagayor from the North were given the chance to speak up 
and speak their minds to the people of Bangkok during two concerts at 
the Saeng Arun Arts Centre. They related their message through verse 
and melody. 
 
"We, you and 1, live together in Thailand. Unfortunately, we've never 
known each other well enough. I'm glad to have come here [to 
Bangkok]. It will give us [Puagayor] the opportunity to show other 
people who we are, where and how we live our lives, and what is on our 
minds,'' said Phorlepa, 65, a Puagayor poet and rice farmer, his brown 
face showing deep wrinkles when he smiled. 
 
The old man, whose numerous Karen poems and stories have been 
translated into and published in Thai, had been invited to talk with the 
audience at the Puagayor concert, which was titled "Voices of a 
Watershed Tribe". This was his second visit to the capital; his first 
being 10 years ago when he accompanied his nephew to hospital. 
 
"Bangkok has changed [in the last 10 years]. Cars and buses move more 
slowly, like turtles," said the old poet, chuckling softly. "But the city is 
just fine. Puagayor people have a saying, 'A frog belongs to its own 
hole, and a fish belongs to its own backwater.' It's your home here in 
Bangkok. My home is up there on the mountain. 
 
"Ten years ago when I first came here to Bangkok, I knew nobody. I 
tried to look at other people's faces but they. didn't look back at all. This 
time, many people [attending the concert] have come up and talked to 
me. I feel good. I like you people [of Bangkok] because you are humans 
just like me. 
 
Thongdi Tupho, a Puagayor musician in his early 40s, appeared to be a 
less willing visitor to the capital. 
 
"I find it necessary for us Puagayor to try to communicate with urban 
people," said Thongdi, who is also a rice farmer. "If  you were to ask 
school children throughout the country whether it is hill-tribe people 
who destroy forests and are the primary producers of narcotics, they 
would probably answer 'yes'. This is what children in our country are 
taught about hill-tribe people. 
 
"Authorities are lying to the children by teaching them this," he added. 
"The children never have the chance to see with their own eyes how 
hill-tribe people live. Consequently, they misunderstand us, thinking we 
are not Thai citizens, but trouble-makers and enemies." 
 
Leesa agreed, adding, "Hill-tribe people are blamed for slash-and-burn 
farming, which destroys forests. But one thing must be remembered: 
We've lived in the forests for hundreds of years, but the forests still 
exist. Hill-tribe people believe in ghosts and spiritual beings. We have 
our own way of protecting the forests by clinging to these old beliefs." 
 
To say for certain who is destroying the forests, Thongdi said people 
need to "dig a foot deeper into the ground", to consider the matter more 
thoroughly. 
 
"I don't consider people who cut down trees in order to grow rice for 
their own consumption forest destroyers," he said. "Instead, it is those 
who cut down trees in order to grow cabbages, not just for their own 
consumption, but for commercial purposes who are destroying the 
forests. And who is behind all these people if not traders and factory 
owners from the lowlands? They promote destructive farming and then 
earn a lot from trading the produce." 
 
"We Puagayor have several old rhymes that teach people to look after 
the forests well," said Takohae, a Puagayor man who has lived in 
Bangkok for 10 years. He recited a short rhyme as an example: 
 
*Little notched-tailed birds,
Eat pipal fruits, 
And look after pipal branches. 
Little long-tailed birds, 
Eat pipalflowers, 
And look after pipal trees.*" 
 
"Life on the mountain has changed," remarked the mountain poet 
Phorlepa. "People don't grow cotton plants to spin their own yarn any 
more. They just buy thread from markets in town to weave into cloth, or 
they just buy finished clothes." 
 
Young hill-tribe women these days like to wear trousers, which they 
never wore in the past, he said. Also, hill-tribe children now go to 
government schools where they are made to speak Thai; thus, they tend 
to forget their own dialect, he said. Now, fewer and fewer Puagayor 
children can read and write the Karen language. 
 
"I'm tired [of witnessing all these changes]," said Phorlepa. "Deep in my 
heart, I don't want to see our young people leave their mountain homes 
to work in towns. But I can't stop them." 
 
Tha, Puagayor poetry set to music, has long been used as a medium to 
educate young Karen children about things such as social norms and 
environmental preservation. But even this has changed. 
 
"Puagayor children don't know much about tha these days," said 
Phorlepa. "Without tha, their lives have become confused. Girls are 
becoming pregnant now without being married. 
 
"Tha are seeds of love," he continued. "They are tiny but powerful 
seeds. Tha are metaphors. You will never hurt people by reciting tha to 
them. The ancient poetry ties us together, like brothers and sisters." 
 
Nevertheless, Phorlepa says this trend towards modern ways is starting 
to swing back the other way. 
 
"Years ago, our young people liked to listen to modern music, but 
nowadays, they are listening more and more to tha. I think they are 
turning back [to traditional lifestyles]." 
 
Thongdi expressed similar hopes for reviving the old Puagayor ways.
 
"In less than five years, I've noticed some positive changes in terms of 
tribal culture preservation. Things are getting better, I hope, "he said. 
 
This, he added, was probably because more outsiders from the lowlands 
both academics and members of non-government organizations, have 
shown a greater interest in the preservation of hill-tribe culture. 
Puagayor people are again coming to realize the significance of their 
own culture. 
 
"In the recent past, during the time I was growing up, Puagayor 
traditions and cultures were in a state of confusion," said Thongdi. 
Young Puagayor people at that time did not dress in traditional clothes. 
They did not study their own language. They; were not interested in 
their own traditions. 
 
"I myself grew up in more of an urban atmosphere than a tribal one," the 
singer admitted. Perhaps this is the reason he chose a guitar rather than 
a traditional Puagayor instrument when he started touring the 
mountains performing concerts some 20 years ago. However, he said, he 
still includes some old tha songs in his repertoire. 
 
"I spend my free time singing to hill-tribe people. I talk about two things 
in my songs: the dignity of tribal people and the conservation of forests 
and the natural environment," he said. 
 
"Some old people listen to my songs and shed tears. They always wish 
to say the same things I say; but, they just don't know how to make 
their voices heard in this modern world. " 
 
*Roads have been built into our villages. 
You daughters are setting off for the city. 
The sound of rice-pounding mortars 
Will be heard no more. 
Red cloaks for young men 
And white cloaks for young women, 
You won 't wear them now. 
Ther and kuay (cloth shoulder bags and bamboo baskets), 
You won't carry. 
Kwae, Khro and Tenaku (Puagayor musical instruments), 
You can play no more.*" 
 
This is an extract from Thongdi's song "The Lost Tribe". In recent years 
his medium of expression may have become more high-tech with 
Western instruments and amplifiers, but his message remains the same.
 
By attempting to relate their stories to the outside world, the Puagayor 
artists said they hoped each tribal group would be able to maintain their 
dignity and peaceful lives. At the same time, they wished different 
groups of people, hill-tribes and lowlanders, could learn to live together 
with equity and in harmony.