Oil and gas

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Description: Myanmar Petrochemical Enterprise ("MPE") is a "100% State Owned Economic Enterprise responsible for Downstream Petroleum Sub-sector". Lists its refineries and plants producing urea fertilizer, methanol, LPG, bitumen, carbon dioxide, lubricants etc. and invites cooperation in this sector
Source/publisher: Myanmar Ministry of Energy
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-19
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
Format : php
Size: 201 bytes
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Description: Myanmar Petroleum Products Enterprise is the State-owned Organization vested with authority and responsibility to carry out retail and whole sale distribution of Petroleum products in Myanmar. The Enterprise has conducted the effective and intensive distribution of Petroleum Products, dedicated to Agriculture, Fishery, Transport, Power Generation, Defense, Construction and Industries in the Government Sector and also to the Private Sector from the existing 4 Main Fuel Terminals, 26 Sub Fuel Terminals, 11 Aviation Depots and 256 Filling Stations." Lists its terminals and filling stations and carries an interesting little invitation regarding "Import of Crude Oil, Diesel Fuel and Motor Gasoline on a Deferred Basis
Source/publisher: Myanmar Ministry of Energy
Date of entry/update: 2010-08-20
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Description: "In a coordinated action yesterday, the United States, UK, and Canada each announced an array of new Myanmar sanctions. The sanctions include restrictions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on transactions with the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), as well as designations on entities and individuals connected to Myanmar’s military junta. Oliver Windridge, Director of Illicit Finance Policy at The Sentry, said: “We welcome the adoption by the US Treasury Department of additional sanctions that restrict the Myanmar military's access to funds and equipment it uses to conduct a brutal war against its people. The MOGE Financial Services Directive is especially significant as it will hinder substantial flows of foreign exchange earnings from reaching the military's coffers. Coordinated sanctions on networks of arms dealers that enable the military's war effort are also a positive development. We call on the US to continue its efforts in coordination with like-minded partners to use financial tools of pressure to weaken the military and ensure that the Myanmar people prevail." Yadanar Maung, Justice For Myanmar spokesperson, said: "The US Financial Services directive against MOGE is a welcome step to disrupt the single biggest source of foreign revenue to the junta. This comes after a sustained campaign from Myanmar people and allies for action against MOGE. The US should continue to target the junta’s sources of funds through full sanctions on MOGE that would freeze its assets and block all trade with it, including from the international oilfield service companies that are supporting the maintenance and expansion of gas fields which finance atrocities. Moreover, it is positive to see increased coordination between Canada, the UK and US targeting the junta, its cronies and arms brokers. As the junta continues to wage a campaign of terror against the people of Myanmar, it is crucial that governments ratchet up sanctions to block the junta’s access to funds, arms, and jet fuel.” For media inquiries or interview requests for The Sentry, please contact: Greg Hittelman, Director of Communications, [email protected] For media inquiries for Justice For Myanmar, please contact: Yadanar Maung, Spokesperson, [email protected] About Justice For Myanmar Justice For Myanmar is a covert group of activists using research, data visualisation, and reporting to expose and dismantle the business networks that fuel brutality, corruption and mass-scale suffering. ‍‍One report at a time, Justice For Myanmar is going after the military’s sources of funds and arms. As a result of its work and the work of many others across Myanmar and the world, multinational corporations have already divested hundreds of millions of dollars from business with the military, and targeted sanctions are beginning to disrupt the Myanmar military cartel’s global network. About The Sentry (Short descriptor for press use: “The Sentry, an investigative organization that tracks corruption”) The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Pull back the curtain on wars, mass atrocities, and other human rights abuses, and you’ll find grand corruption and unchecked greed. These tragedies persist because the perpetrators rarely face meaningful consequences. The Sentry aims to alter the warped incentive structures that continually undermine peace and good governance. Our investigations follow the money as it is laundered from war zones to financial centers around the world. We provide evidence and strategies for governments, banks, and law enforcement to hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account. These efforts provide new leverage for human rights, peace, and anti-corruption efforts..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2023-11-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-11-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 110.9 KB
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Description: "Dear Government of Singapore, The signatories of people of Myanmar[1], signed by over 27,700 (included from ground 1,314) individuals and endorsed by (430) local and international organizations from across the world, are writing to the government of Singapore. The brutal and illegal Myanmar military junta has been relying on Singapore for funds and the supply of arms, equipment, technology, and jet fuel, enabling its ongoing attacks against the people. Since February 1, 2021, the junta has been waging a campaign of terror with indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling, murder, torture, arbitrary detention, rape and the destruction of homes and food supplies. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar recently revealed[2] that Singapore is the third biggest supplier of arms and equipment[3] to the Myanmar military since its coup attempt, in a trade valued at $254 million from at least 138 Singaporean companies. Singapore also remains a major business center for the military’s cronies. Some, like Tay Za[4] and Naing Htut Aung[5], enjoy lavish lifestyles in the city state while profiting from the destruction of Myanmar lives. Despite UK and US sanctions, Shoon Group of Companies are continuing to operate in Singapore, supplying the junta with jet fuel[6] that it needs to wage aerial warfare against the people. It is clear that from Singapore, businesses are transacting with the Myanmar military and conglomerates, enriching war criminals and supporting their international crimes[7]. But this can and must be stopped. Singapore has committed to investigate companies supplying arms and dual use goods, and United Overseas Bank (UOB) has recently imposed restrictions[8] on transactions involving Myanmar. Singapore needs to now do more to help stop the junta’s campaign of terror. We call on Singapore to: 1) Introduce sanctions to stop the direct and indirect transfer of arms, dual-use goods, technology, jet fuel, and related transactions, to the Myanmar military, 2) Utilise money laundering provisions and impose sanctions to ensure the illegal junta cannot access the Singapore financial system, including the USD 4.6 billion of funds that belong to the Government of Myanmar, 3) Expedite and make public ongoing investigations into Singaporean companies that have supplied arms, dual-use goods and technology to the Myanmar military. #DoMoreSingapore Respectfully, Signed by the people of Myanmar, (430 orgs) local and international organizations, including (10) local organizations that have chosen not to disclose their names because the junta continues violence in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: 430 local and international organizations via Justice For Myanmar
2023-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2023-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf
Size: 280.92 KB 299.32 KB
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Sub-title: Civil society groups call on Canadian and UK government bodies to help ensure that MTI Energy does not uphold Chevron’s legacy of bankrolling atrocity crimes.
Description: "September 14, 2023, Today, EarthRights International and a Myanmar civil society organization submitted a complaint to the National Contact Points of Canada and the United Kingdom asserting that Canadian company MTI is engaging in acts of corruption and contributing to human rights atrocities in Myanmar in breach of guidelines established by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD Guidelines are a leading global standard used by multinational corporations worldwide to inform their human rights, anti-corruption, and environmental practices. Many governments belonging to the OECD, including Canada and the U.K., have established National Contact Points that accept complaints about breaches of the Guidelines. The U.K. and Canada have also repeatedly raised concerns about the Myanmar military’s use of stolen natural resource revenues to fund the military’s atrocities. MTI Energy is going into business with the junta through the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, whose offices were seized by the military early in the coup. While MTI Energy is registered in Canada, its purchase is being made through a subsidiary registered in Bermuda. Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory and implements U.K. sanctions. MTI Energy is set to take over from Chevron and become the largest shareholder in Myanmar’s Yadana gas project, which earns the junta tens of millions of dollars monthly. The company appears likely to use its substantial management powers to ensure that it and the junta can sell off Myanmar’s state assets, funding the junta’s atrocities. This leaves MTI Energy in breach of the OECD Guidelines. “MTI Energy has not consulted with communities or civil society in Myanmar that are directly affected by their investment,” said John Doe, a representative of the civil society group, which wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons. “If they had, we’d have told them their pipeline cuts through communities torn apart by civil war, and they will be funding one side of it. The junta is not our government and is using gas revenues to rain bombs from jet planes on our communities.” MTI Energy can only enter Myanmar’s gas sector by signing contracts with the Government of Myanmar. The United Nations General Assembly has refused to recognize the junta as the government, and Myanmar’s Ambassador to the U.N. instead answers to Myanmar’s National Unity Government. “In January, Robert Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.N., gave opening remarks during the launch of a U.N. report on why the junta is not the legitimate Government of Myanmar. MTI Energy is planning to treat the military junta as if it were the recognized government so it can profit from Myanmar’s methane gas exports,” said EarthRights Director of Strategy and Campaigns, Keith Slack. The complaint to the OECD National Contact Points calls on MTI Energy to comply with the OECD Guidelines, including by ensuring that it can use its leverage, either alone or in cooperation with other investors, to divert gas revenues away from the junta. If it cannot, it will contribute to the junta’s atrocity crimes. “Canada’s National Contact Point (NCP) sits in the office of Global Affairs Canada. As GAC considers whether to finally follow the EU’s lead and impose sanctions on Myanmar gas revenues, we’d hope that the NCP staff might wander down the hall and highlight that MTI Energy is entering a corrupt joint venture with Myanmar’s brutal military junta that will fund airstrikes on school and hospitals,” added Keith Slack. Just this month, the junta targeted a school and a church in Karen state, killing four students and a teacher. “MTI Energy has completely ignored its responsibilities under the OECD Guidelines by entering into business that contributes to the junta’s atrocities. MTI has so far refused to communicate with Myanmar civil society, and I hope the OECD National Contact Points will provide an avenue for us to resolve our serious concerns about MTI’s investment. MTI’s irresponsible entry into Myanmar is enabled by the failure of the UK and Canadian governments to sanction Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. I urge them to now take action and block gas funds to the junta,” concluded John Doe..."
Source/publisher: Earth Rights International
2023-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-09-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Burma Campaign UK today welcomed the passing of a European Parliament Resolution on Thursday, which called on the European Union to impose sanctions on the supply of aviation fuel to the Burmese military. The calls were made in a new Resolution condemning the back-door ban on 40 political parties in Burma. The Resolution is available here. Almost daily airstrikes by the Burmese military over the past two years have killed and injured thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, creating a humanitarian crisis. As Burmese military jets use commercial aviation fuel and have taken fuel intended for civilian use, only a complete ban on the supply of aviation fuel to Burma will help reduce airstrikes. Reports by Amnesty International and Global Witness have exposed the role of European companies in the supply chain delivering aviation fuel to Burma. The European Parliament Resolution also calls for targeted sanctions on sources of revenue to the Burmese military, including No2 Mining Enterprise and the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank. Other demands include supporting a referral of Burma to the International Criminal Court, and for the EU and member states to increase funding for Rohingya refugees. The European Parliament also condemns Russia and China “for their political, economic and military backing of Myanmar’s junta”. The European Parliament Resolution is not binding but increases pressure on the European Union to impose sanctions on the delivery of aviation fuel to Burma, and to speed up the slow pace of the implementation of sanctions on sources of revenue to the Burmese military. “The European Parliament has called on the European Union to do more to stop the flow of aviation fuel and revenue to the Burmese military, and the European Union must now listen and act”, said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “There is much more the European Union can do to reduce the capacity of the Burmese military to keep bombing and killing the people of Burma.”..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
2023-05-12
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "On April 13, ENEOS Holdings (hereinafter referred to as“ENEOS”) announced that their withdrawal from the Yetagun gas project inMyanmar had been approved by the Myanmar “government” on April 12, in referenceto the illegitimate military junta. This announcement by ENEOS provided little information,with the company stating, “The impact of this transaction on our consolidatedfinancial results is expected to be minimal”, and made no reference to thecompany’s obligations to responsibly exit, in accordance with the UN GuidingPrinciples on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines. Malaysian company Petronas has been the operator of theYetagun gas project, under a partnership with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise(MOGE), PTTEP of Thailand, and the ENEOS consolidated subsidiary, Nippon OilExploration (Myanmar). Other investors in Nippon Oil are the JapaneseGovernment and Mitsubishi Corporation. While Petronas announced its withdrawal in 2022, ithas not issued an update on the current status of its exit and any steps it hastaken to divest from Myanmar responsibly. Last year and also this year, Mekong Watch, FoE Japanand Justice For Myanmar (JFM) strongly urged ENEOS and its partners to responsibly disengage, with transparency andthrough consultation with local communities and civil society stakeholders.However, our demands were ignored. In exiting Myanmar, ENEOS and its internationalpartners have apparently failed to ensure that revenue from the project wouldnot flow to the Myanmar military. Also, ENEOS and its internationalpartners have not taken appropriate steps to close the field, which ispredicted to be near depletion. While under control of the illegal militaryjunta, MOGE cannot be trusted to close the gas field in an environmentallyresponsible way. According to information obtained by JFM, the Yetagungas project is being taken over by Gulf Petroleum Myanmar, which is part of the Thailand-based NorthernGulf Petroleum group. Northern Gulf Petroleum is structured through shell companies in Bermuda, a taxhaven, according to information on the GPM website on June 28, 2022 (which has nowbeen removed), and has a holding company in Singapore, a corporate structurethat uses secrecy jurisdictions that may help facilitate payments to the junta.The selection of GPM as a successor implies that ENEOS, the Government ofJapan, and Mitsubishi Corporation have not taken adequatemeasures to identify, prevent, mitigate and remedy the negative environmentaland social impacts related to their withdrawal. We call on ENEOS, the Government of Japan and Mitsubishi Corporation todisclose their human rights due diligence in relation to their withdrawal fromMyanmar, and the steps they will take to address negative impacts, inaccordance with their international human rights responsibilities. .."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2023-04-17
Date of entry/update: 2023-04-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
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Description: "ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေး အစိုးရအနေဖြင့် ရတနာစီမံကိန်း ၏ ရန်ပုံငွေ ခွဲဝေမှုနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်းသည့် တရားဝင် တောင်းဆိုချက်စာ (demand letter) တရပ်ကို PTT Exploration and Production Public Company ထံ ယနေ့ ပေးပို့အပ်ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါရန်ပုံငွေများသည် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ မြန်မာ ပြည်သူများအား အကြမ်းဖက်တိုက်ခိုက် နှိပ်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်နိုင်ရန် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုအား အထောက်အပံ့ ဖြစ်ထွန်းလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ အဆိုပါ ရန်ပုံငွေများသည် လက်ရှိဖြစ်ပွားလျက်ရှိသော လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို အားဖြည့်ကူညီ လျက်ရှိကာ အပြစ်ကင်းစင်သော နိုင်ငံသူ နိုင်ငံသားများအား အကြမ်းဖက်နိုင်ရန် အထောက်အပံ့ ဖြစ်လျက် ရှိကြောင်း တွေ့ရနိုင်ပါသည်။ မကြာသေးမီက ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သော အကြမ်းဖက်မှုကြီးအပေါ် ကုလသမဂ္ဂလုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီ၊ ကုလသမဂ္ဂမြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ အထူးကိုယ်စားလှယ် နှင့် တကမ္ဘာလုံးမှ အစိုးရများစွာက ပြစ်တင်ရှုံ့ချခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကုလသမဂ္ဂလုံခြုံရေးကောင်စီ ဆုံးဖြတ်ချက်အမှတ် ၂၆၆၉ တွင် "နိုင်ငံတဝှမ်းလုံး၌ ဖြစ်ပွားလျက်ရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက်မှု ပုံသဏ္ဍာန် အမျိုးမျိုး နှင့် အရပ်သားများ နှင့် အရပ်သား အခြေခံအဆောက်အဦများအား တိုက်ခိုက် ဖျက်ဆီးမှုများအား ပြင်းထန်စွာစိုးရိမ်ပူပန်ခြင်း" ကိုဖော်ပြခဲ့ပြီး “အဆိုပါ ပုံသဏ္ဍာန်အမျိုးမျိုးသော အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများအား ချက်ခြင်းရပ်ဆိုင်းရန်” ဟု တောင်းဆိုထားခဲ့ပါသည်။ သို့ဖြစ်ပါ၍ စစ်အုပ်စုအား နိုင်ငံခြားငွေစီးဆင်းနေခြင်းအား ရပ်တန့်ရန် အရေးတကြီး လိုအပ်ပါသည်။ အဆိုပါ ဝင်ငွေများဖြင့် စစ်အုပ်စုသည် လက်နက်များဝယ်ယူကာ အရပ်သားပြည်သူများအား သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ဆေးရုံ နှင့် စာသင်ကျောင်းများကို တိုက်ခိုက်ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းများ လုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိရာ၂၀၂၁ ခု ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မှ ယနေ့ထိဆိုလျှင် ကုလသမဂ္ဂမှ ထုတ်ပြန်သောကိန်းဂဏန်းအရ ၁,၇၀၄,၀၀၀ (၁.၇ သန်းကျော်) သော ပြည်သူများသည် မိမိနေအိမ်ကို စွန့်ခွာ၍ ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်ခဲ့ကြရပြီ ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ နောက်ထပ် ပြည်သူ တသန်းကျော်သည်လည်း အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများတွင် ခိုလှုံနေနိုင်ရန် ကြိုးစားလျက်ရှိကြပါသည်။ အဆိုပါ အဖြစ်အပျက်သည် ကြီးမားသော ဝမ်းနည်းဖွယ် ဖြစ်ရပ်ကြီး ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကုမ္ပဏီများ နှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ အစိုးရများအနေဖြင့် စစ်အုပ်စု၏ အကြမ်းဖက်တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကို လူသားချင်းစာနာသော တာဝန်တရပ်အဖြစ် ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီသည့်အနေဖြင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ ယခု ရန်ပုံငွေ ဖြတ်တောက်ရေး လုပ်ဆောင် ချက်အပေါ် ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီကြရန် တာဝန်ရှိကြပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် ရတနာစီမံကိန်းနှင့် စပ်လျဉ်းသော တရားဝင် တောင်းဆိုချက် စာကို PTT သို့ ပေးပို့လိုက်ပါသည်။ ယခု ပေးပို့သောစာသည် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုထံ စာချုပ်ပါ အချက်အလက်များကို မမှန်မကန် လိုက်နာ၍ ပေးပို့ခဲ့သော အခွန်အကောက်များ၊ လစဉ် အစီရင်ခံစာများ၊ စစ်အာဏာလုယူပြီးနောက် ဆက်လက်လုပ် ဆောင်ခဲ့သော လုပ်ငန်းများအပေါ် ဖြေရှင်းချက်တောင်းခံခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ထို့အပြင် ရတနာစီမံကိန်း၏ အနာဂတ်ပေးဆောင်မှုအားလုံးသည် မြန်မာပြည်သူများ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားအတွက် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက သဘောတူ လက်ခံသော.. အခြားငွေစာရင်းတခုသို့သာ ဆောင်ရွက်ရန် ညွှန်ကြားခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် ယခင် အစိုးရအဆက်အဆက်နှင့် ပေါင်းသင်း ဆက်ဆံခဲ့သော PTT အပေါ် ထိခိုက်စေလိုခြင်း အလျဉ်းမရှိပါ။ အလားတူပင် လက်ရှိဆောင်ရွက်နေသာ လုပ်ငန်းများအားလည်း ရပ်တန့်စေလိုခြင်း မရှိပါ။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့သည် PTT ၏ ဆောင်ရွက်ချက်များအား လူ့အခွင့်အရေးများနှင့် ကိုက်ညီ လျက်ရှိကြောင်း အတည်ပြုနိုင်ရန် အားပေးဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အနေဖြင့် PTT က ပြည်သူလူထုအပေါ် ပေးထားပြီး ကတိကဝတ်ဖြစ်သည့် ကုလသမဂ္ဂလူ့အခွင့် အရေးဆိုင်ရာ မဟာမင်းကြီး၏ အကြံပြုချက်များအပေါ် လိုက်နာလိုခြင်းအား ထောက်ခံပါသည်။ PTT ကပင် လျှင် “အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများနှင့် မငြိမ်မသက်မှုများ" ဟု ဖော်ထုတ်ခဲ့သော မြန်မာနယ်မြေအတွင်း စစ်အုပ်စု လုပ်ဆောင်နေသော လုပ်ရပ်များကြောင့် အချို့လုပ်ငန်းများကို ရပ်တန့်ထားရန် ဆုံးဖြတ်ခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သည်ကို လည်း ဂရုထား၍ ဤတရားဝင် တောင်းဆိုစာကို ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်ခြင်း ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ယခုစာသည် PTT အား လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကို လေးစားလိုက်နာ ရပ်တည်ခြင်း နှင့် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုအား ရှောင်ဖယ် ဆန့်ကျင်ခြင်းအတွက် မှတ်ကျောက် တခု ဖြစ်လာစေပါမည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အနေဖြင့် PTT သည် ယခုစာပါ မူဝါဒများအတိုင်း လိုက်နာလျက် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းလုပ်ဆောင်သွားလိမ့်မည်ဟု မျှော်လင့်ယုံကြည်ပါသည်။ PTT အနေဖြင့် ယခုစာပါ တောင်းဆိုချက်များအပေါ် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း မပြုပါက ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ အနေဖြင့် စီးပွားရေးဆိုင်ရာ အငြင်းပွားမှုအဖြစ် တရားဝင်အစိုးရတရပ်၏ လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ စည်းမျဉ်း ဥပဒေများနှင့်အညီ လူထု၏ အခြေခံ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးများ နှင့် ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာများ ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရမှုအပေါ် မူတည်၍ စာချုပ်ပါ အတိုင်း စင်္ကာပူနိုင်ငံ အနုညာတ တရားရုံးတွင် တရားစွဲဆိုသွားမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2023-03-20
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: A People’s Defense Force member died after the junta sent in an attack helicopter.
Description: "A pro-democracy militia in central Magway region set fire to a junta-controlled oil well after storming a military guard post at a Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise oil field. Around five junta troops were injured in Thursday’s attack but the People’s Defense Force was hit harder, with one death and seven injuries following a junta airstrike, according to the Myaing People’s Administration Group, which is aligned with the PDF. Around 40 junta soldiers, police and members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia were stationed at a camp in the oil field when the PDF attacked. “The PDF forces surrounded Well Two and opened fire (on the guard posts),” Cpt. Mite Tee, administration officer of Myaing township’s western zone told RFA. “We were able to burn it (the posts) down and had some success but we had to retreat due to a sudden airstrike.” He said the junta attack helicopter fired around 20 times at the PDF after it set fire to tents at the camp’s gates and entered the camp. The military junta has not released a statement on the incident and calls to junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Friday. There are hundreds of oil wells in the Well Two oil field, which produces about 100 barrels per day, according to residents. Mite Tee told RFA that troops often raid nearby villages to flush out People’s Defense Force members and try to limit attacks. The junta declared martial law in Magway region’s Myaing, Pauk, Tilin, Gangaw and Saw townships on Feb. 2 this year..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2023-03-10
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "As evidence grows of British companies’ involvement in Burma’s gas industry, Burma Campaign UK is calling on the British government to sanction the military-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. The British government must take action to prevent British companies being involved in Burma’s gas industry, which earns the Burmese military more than $2bn a year. They must also work with allies to prevent gas revenue reaching the Burmese military. British involvement in Burma’s gas industry includes: InterMoor, a subsidiary of British company Acteon Group, has been working on the Shwe gas project in Burma. A holding company in Bermuda, a British overseas territory, is being used by Canadian company MTI Energy to purchase a 41% stake in the Yadana gas project. Burma Campaign UK is working to confirm information about British insurance companies insuring vessels and infrastructure for gas projects in Burma. “British companies involved in the gas industry in Burma are facilitating an industry which enables the Burmese military to receive billions of dollars,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “Gas sales provide revenue which the Burmese military can use for the purchase of arms and equipment, including the jets used for airstrikes against civilians.” The British government has a policy of systematically identifying and sanctioning sources of revenue, arms and equipment to the Burmese military. However, the policy is being implemented too slowly. Burma Campaign UK is calling on Foreign Secretary James Cleverly MP to speed up the implementation of sanctions against other sources of revenue and arms. The British government should seek to find creative ways of preventing gas revenue reaching the Burmese military, such as the creation of escrow accounts and sanctioning international bank accounts of MOGE. Burma Campaign UK is asking supporters to write to the Foreign Secretary calling on him to sanction MOGE..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
2023-02-27
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-27
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Description: "Military-ruled Myanmar plans to import Russian gasoline and fuel oil to ease supply concerns and rising prices, a junta spokesperson said, the latest developing country to do so amid a global energy crisis. The Southeast Asian country has maintained friendly ties with Russia, even as both remain under a raft of sanctions from Western countries — Myanmar for a military coup that overthrew an elected government last year, and Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a “special military operation.” Russia is seeking new customers for its energy in the region as its biggest export destination, Europe, will impose an embargo on Russian oil in phases later this year. “We have received permission to import petrol from Russia,” military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said during a news conference Wednesday, adding that it was favored for its “quality and low cost.” Fuel oil shipments are due to start arriving from September, according to media. Zaw Min Tun said junta chief Min Aung Hlaing discussed oil and gas during a trip to Russia last month. Myanmar now imports its fuel through Singapore. Myanmar would consider joint oil exploration in Myanmar with Russia and China, he said. The military has set up a Russian Oil Purchasing Committee headed by a close ally of Min Aung Hlaing to oversee the buying, importing, and transport of fuel at reasonable prices based on Myanmar’s needs, according to a statement published in a state newspaper on Wednesday. In addition to political turmoil and civil unrest, Myanmar has been hit hard by high fuel prices and power cuts, prompting its military leadership to turn to imports of fuel oil that can be used in power plants. Petrol prices have surged about 350% since the coup in February last year to about $1 (2,300-2,700 kyat) per liter. In the past week, petrol stations have shut down in various parts of the country because of shortages, according to media reports. Russia is also a major supplier of weapons to the Myanmar military.
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK) via "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
2022-08-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-18
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Description: "The world awoke on July 25th to news that Myanmar’s military junta had executed four democracy activists following a sham judicial process, the first death sentences carried out in Myanmar in decades. Although the military has killed thousands, including dozens who have been tortured to death in military custody, since attempting to wrest control of the country from the democratically elected government in a February 1, 2021 coup d’état, the executions, and reports that a further 41 may be planned, represent a significant escalation of the junta’s campaign of repression against the people of Myanmar. The executions also show irrefutably the junta’s indifference to appeals from the international community. It is past time for US policy toward Myanmar to respond meaningfully to the junta’s depravity by taking truly meaningful action to restrict the junta’s access to foreign currency through sanctions that target its largest source of foreign income: Myanmar’s oil and gas industry. The arguments against this approach do not withstand scrutiny. Ma Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of hip-hop activist turned pro-democracy politician Ko Phyo Zayar Thaw, summed up the situation in an interview with Frontier Myanmar shortly after learning that her husband had been executed. She said: “The military has been killing people in Myanmar since the military coup. But they always denied these crimes. Now, they killed publicly. They show now that they kill people, and they don’t care who. If they want to kill, they can kill. They don’t care about our human rights.” The executions demonstrate the disdain with which the junta views international opinion and a disregard for diplomatic pressure, as even sympathetic dictators such as Cambodia’s Hun Sen had urged the junta to call off the executions. Not that this demonstration was needed. The junta has spent over a year thumbing its nose at ASEAN by ignoring the “Five Point Consensus” to which it agreed in April 2021 and has consistently refused to allow the United Nations Special Envoy to Myanmar access to the country. The international community must take immediate action to weaken the military’s ability to retain power and the impunity with which it commits abuses. Condemnation of the junta’s actions, while necessary, is clearly insufficient. For the United States, this starts with leveling long-overdue sanctions on Myanmar’s oil and gas industry, and in particular the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) – the government entity that acts as both the industry regulator and commercial partner for oil and gas projects in Myanmar. The junta may not care about international opinion, but it relies on the international financial system for the funds it needs to fuel its repression and enrich its leaders. The junta needs foreign currency to purchase weapons, surveillance technology, and jet fuel – all the products that have allowed it to terrorize the people of Myanmar. Prior to the coup, Myanmar’s offshore gas sector was the single largest source of foreign currency income for the government. MOGE was estimated to earn up to $1.5 billion in annual revenue, representing approximately 10% of the pre-coup budget. The increase in global gas prices coupled with the irresponsible decision by TotalEnergies to withdraw from Myanmar by gifting some of its shares in Myanmar’s largest gas field to the junta means it is possible that the junta has earned even more over the past year. MOGE sanctions are already months overdue. The oil and gas industry has always been the most obvious and impactful target for US sanctions due to the small number of companies and limited employment in the sector, its disproportionate importance to junta revenues, and its reliance on the foreign financial system to process payments. Activists, NGOs, Myanmar’s National Unity Government, and the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur have been calling for US sanctions since shortly after the coup. The EU sanctioned MOGE in February. Some international gas companies, after months of lobbying against sanctions, have changed their tune and called for the United States to act. Calls have also come from the U.S Congress. In April 2021 a bipartisan group of US senators, led by Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) sent a letter to the administration calling for MOGE sanctions, as did House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters in August. Following last week’s executions, Senator Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell added public calls for MOGE sanctions as well. Targeting Myanmar’s state-owned enterprises is already official US policy, especially those involved in resource extraction. The United States has sanctioned the state-owned enterprises that oversee the timber, pearl, and gemstone industries. In January, the US government released a business advisory warning of the risks of doing business with state-owned enterprises. In spite of this, the Biden administration has thus far refused to take action against MOGE and the gas industry, instead targeting sanctions at industries that either provide minimal revenues to the junta or lack connections to the global financial system that would make them vulnerable to US sanctions. There appear to be two primary reasons for this refusal to target MOGE: 1. Concern about potential humanitarian impacts both in Myanmar and in Thailand (the importer of most of Myanmar’s gas), and 2. A related, but broader, opposition from the Thai government to US sanctions. Both of these reasons are grounded in the inaccurate assumption that US sanctions would lead directly to a shutdown in gas production, which could then reduce electricity supplies to Yangon and disrupt Thai energy markets. This concern is a red herring. Sanctions can, and should, be written to ensure that companies involved in gas production are not forced to suspend operations. Instead, sanctions should target financial transactions to ensure that revenue payments can be frozen or diverted from the military’s coffers and directed into restricted or escrow accounts. Only the junta could decide to suspend production, and there are four reasons to think that it would be unlikely to do so. 1. Domestic legitimacy. Gas fields provide supplies domestically, especially to the industrial base around Yangon. If the junta responded to sanctions by halting gas production, this would directly harm the businesses that provide a production and tax base for the military regime. This would undermine the junta’s claims to legitimacy, which are based on its self-image as the only institution that can maintain stability in the country; 2. International politics. China and Thailand, the export recipients of most of Myanmar’s offshore gas, are also key supporters of the military junta. These relationships are too important for the junta to antagonize by cutting off gas supplies; 3. Greed and economic self-interest. The junta will desire to gain access to this money in the future, even if sanctions freeze gas revenues right now. Shutting down production and export would prevent the junta from ever collecting these funds, but as long as production continues, money will continue to build up. Further, restarting gas fields is time-consuming and potentially cost prohibitive for a near-depleted field like the Yadana field; and 4. Precedent. EU sanctions did not lead to a shutdown in production, even though an EU company (TotalEnergies) was heavily involved in the largest field. US sanctions should be crafted with waivers to allow production to continue. Even if the junta did decide to halt production, the Thai energy sector would see little impact. Research by EarthRights International shows that Thailand already has excess generation capacity. Further, Thailand could easily switch to fuel oil to manage immediate shocks while moving forward its plans to replace Myanmar gas with increased liquid natural gas imports. There is a deeper reason for Thai opposition to sanctions. Myanmar’s coup-leader Min Aung Hlaing enjoys close ties with Thailand’s military establishment, to the point where he was adopted by a Thai general in 2012. In 2018, as the Myanmar military was committing genocide against the Rohingya people, he was given Thai military honors. Mere days after the coup, Min Aung Hlaing reportedly wrote to Thai Prime Minister Prayut asking the Thai leader to “support the democracy of Myanmar” that he was in the process of trampling. Prime Minister Prayut, who first seized power himself in a 2014 coup, assured Min Aung Hlaing that Thailand would not interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs. While US officials publicly tout Thailand’s role facilitating cross-border assistance, the reality on the ground tells a starkly different story, with the Thai government continuing to restrict aid, arrest activists, and force thousands of refugees back across the border. In truth, the Thai government, dominated by former military officers and born from multiple military coups, has little interest in seeing resistance to a military coup succeed next door. We need only look at the Thai response to incursions by Myanmar’s air force into Thai air space during bombing raids on villages and opposition outposts, including a recent incident that forced Thai schoolchildren to seek safety in a bomb shelter. Prime Minister Prayut claimed the incident was “not a big deal” while Thai Air Marshall Napedej Thupatemi said, “Bear in mind, Myanmar is a friend.” He was not referring to the pro-democracy movement or deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It is also clear that a successful coup would leave Myanmar almost entirely dependent on Chinese and Russian investment and political support, setting US regional influence back decades. Weakness in current US policy in Myanmar undermines the Biden administration’s stated efforts to re-prioritize support for democracy following four years of neglect under President Trump. The current US posture also calls into question the administration’s willingness to stand up to an increasingly assertive China in a key geostrategic area. Instead, the US has deflected responsibility by deferring to ineffective “ASEAN centrality” and blaming China for not doing more to rein in the junta. This could not be further from President Biden’s exhortation shortly after taking office: “Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.” This is not to say that sanctions on MOGE will immediately cause the junta to change course or lead directly to its collapse. Sanctions like those proposed on MOGE should be put in place specifically to degrade the ability of the military junta to entrench its power and murder the people of Myanmar by reducing the foreign currency that the junta can use to purchase weapons and surveillance technology. While not decisive on their own, sanctions on MOGE are crucial to any broader strategy the US wants to pursue. Instead, US refusal to sanction MOGE undermines its already haphazard sanctions efforts by ensuring that the junta’s largest source of revenue remains intact. As seen in the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, no credible effort to disrupt the Russian war machine can ignore the oil and gas industry. Yet in Myanmar, where the military junta is also heavily reliant on gas revenues, US policy has insisted on doing just that — ignoring the reality. No wonder US sanctions have had little effect on the junta’s income. Within this context, the Biden administration’s refusal to place sanctions on MOGE is an abdication of political responsibility that risks helping entrench a junta reliant on China and hostile to US interests. The humanitarian risks of MOGE sanctions are limited, especially compared to the clear and obvious costs of refusing to cut this key source of revenue as the junta drags Myanmar deeper into a humanitarian crisis while giving no indication that it will turn from the destructive course it has charted. Youth activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi, in her own recent call for US sanctions on MOGE in the New York Times, put it best: “As the gas revenue flows, so will the blood of Myanmar’s people.” Time to stop that flow, President Biden..."
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Source/publisher: Justice Security
2022-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-03
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Description: "Paris, July 20, 2022 – On January 21, 2022, TotalEnergies announced its decision to withdraw from the Yadana field and from gas transportation company MGTC in Myanmar, both as shareholder and as operator. In a context of continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in Myanmar, this decision resulted from the assessment that TotalEnergies was no longer able to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country, and was not able to meet the expectations of stakeholders who were asking to stop the revenues going to the Burmese state through the state-owned company MOGE from the Yadana field production. In accordance with the contractual 6-month notice period, this withdrawal becomes effective on this 20 July 2022. This withdrawal was made in compliance with the European sanctions put in place in February 2022. Since January 2022, TotalEnergies has continued to act as a responsible operator and has undertaken due diligence to ensure its withdrawal in a responsible manner towards its stakeholders in Myanmar, including its employees as well as the long-standing supported local communities. As such, TotalEnergies worked closely with PTTEP, Thailand's national company, which was appointed as the new operator by the project partners, to guarantee the continuity and safety of production at the Yadana gas field while ensuring an orderly transfer of operations. All our employees in Myanmar were offered employment with the new operator, under the same job and salary conditions, thus securing their professional future. In addition, a complementary support agreement, through a contribution to a dedicated fund, was also set up between TotalEnergies and PTTEP to continue the historic economic development program with local communities in the MGTC pipeline area. As TotalEnergies definitively withdraws from Myanmar, our Company repeats its condemnation of the abuses and human rights violations taking place in this country and reaffirms its support to the people of Myanmar and its hope for a swift return to peace and rule of law. About TotalEnergies TotalEnergies is a global multi-energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Our more than 100,000 employees are committed to energy that is ever more affordable, cleaner, more reliable and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in more than 130 countries, TotalEnergies puts sustainable development in all its dimensions at the heart of its projects and operations to contribute to the well-being of people..."
Source/publisher: TotalEnergies
2022-07-20
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-20
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Sub-title: US Sanctions Urgently Needed on Billions in Oil and Gas Revenue
Description: "(Paris) – Myanmar’s abusive junta will obtain an increased stake in the country’s largest oil and gas field when the French company TotalEnergies withdraws from Myanmar on July 20, 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. TotalEnergies’ shares will be divided proportionally among the remaining three partners – US-based Chevron, Thai-based PTTEP, and the junta-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). TotalEnergies in January announced its plans to leave Myanmar in six months due to a deteriorating human rights situation that “no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country.” The company has operated the Yadana gas project since the 1990s in partnership with Chevron and PTTEP. “Total’s transfer of ownership shares to a military-controlled company will further enrich the junta at the expense of human rights,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director at Human Rights Watch. “Other energy companies looking to exit should make sure they do so responsibly, without contributing to the junta’s coffers.” Since the February 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, the junta has imposed a brutal nationwide crackdown on all opposition. The junta’s widespread and systematic abuses, including mass killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Security forces have killed over 2,000 people and arbitrarily arrested over 14,000. In March, the oil and gas project partners approved PTTEP to take over as the operator of Yadana. The division of TotalEnergies’ 31.2 percent stake in both the gas field and pipeline will leave Chevron with 41.1 percent interest, PTTEP with 37.1 percent, and MOGE with 21.8 percent. Chevron also announced plans to withdraw and has indicated its intention to sell its stake to PTTEP, though few details about its exit have been made public. Natural gas projects in Myanmar generate over US$1 billion in foreign revenue for the junta annually, its single largest source of foreign currency revenue. The money is transmitted in US dollars to MOGE and other military-controlled bank accounts in foreign countries in the form of fees, taxes, royalties, and revenues from the export of natural gas, most of which travels by pipeline to Thailand or China. On February 21, the European Union imposed new sanctions on junta-controlled businesses including MOGE, the first government entity to do so. However, it also issued a license with ambiguous language that seems to allow exiting companies to relinquish or transfer their shares to MOGE. Other companies including Woodside, Mitsubishi, Petronas, and ENEOS have announced plans in recent months to withdraw at least in part from operations in Myanmar. Petronas is being replaced as operator of the Yetagun field by Gulf Petroleum Myanmar, according to reports by Myanmar Now and Justice for Myanmar. When companies exit from Myanmar, they should place their existing shares or property rights into trust or escrow, including shares of exploration or development projects, production, or pipeline transportation ventures, to ensure the revenues from those shares do not benefit the military. If exiting companies determine that they must sell or transfer their shares to another business entity, they should ensure that those entities will respect international sanctions and follow international standards on business and human rights. Adopting these measures would be consistent with companies’ responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that “appropriate action” in cases in which business activities are enabling rights abuses includes consideration of “whether terminating the relationship with the entity itself would have adverse human rights consequences.” Concerned governments should join the EU in sanctioning MOGE while specifying that transfers of ownership to the junta are prohibited. The US in particular is in a key position to impose sanctions since payments in the gas sector – even those handled by non-US companies – are typically made in US dollars and require the involvement of correspondent US or EU banks to finalize, or “settle,” large dollar or Euro transactions. Additional sanctions would also help ensure that the junta is not able to evade the new EU sanctions in other jurisdictions. PTTEP and South Korea’s POSCO, the two main energy companies remaining in Myanmar, should signal their support for such measures. The largest gas revenue payments to junta-controlled accounts are made via PTT, PTTEP’s parent company, which purchases about 80 percent of Myanmar’s exported natural gas from Yadana as well as the Zawtika gas field, which it operates itself. In April, PTTEP announced it was withdrawing from the nearly depleted Yetagun field. POSCO runs the second largest project, Shwe. Human Rights Watch has previously written to all of these companies and their shareholders, urging them to support sanctions on gas revenues. Human Rights Watch has also urged other governments including the US, UK, Australia, and Japan to adopt the EU’s approach and sanction Myanmar’s military-owned companies such as MOGE. “The US and other governments should follow the EU’s lead by urgently imposing measures that will cut the junta off from its millions in gas revenue before companies indifferent to rights take over the payment flows,” Jeannerod said. “Junta leaders need to face economic consequences for the atrocities they are carrying out across Myanmar.”..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
2022-07-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-19
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Description: "The Myanmar military junta has appointed Gulf Petroleum Myanmar (GPM) as operator of the Yetagun gas project, according to a Justice For Myanmar source with knowledge of the deal, and reporting from Myanmar Now. The irresponsible divestment of Petronas and their partners will provide the Myanmar military junta with a continuing source of revenue, and heightens environmental risks from the decommissioning of the gas field, which is near depletion. Petronas is the exiting operator of the Yetagun gas project, under a partnership with PTTEP and the ENEOS consolidated subsidiary, Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar). Other investors in Nippon Oil are the Japanese Government and Mitsubishi Corporation. Friends of the Earth Japan, Justice For Myanmar and Mekong Watch have repeatedly called on Yetagun gas project investors to responsibly exit. This must involve taking appropriate steps to close the field in a way that would ensure future revenues do not flow to the Myanmar military, and that continued human rights and environmental impacts are avoided. Consistent calls by civil society to sanction the military controlled Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) have also gone ignored. To date, only the EU has imposed any sanctions on MOGE. Who is Gulf Petroleum Myanmar? GPM is a private oil and gas company backed by the Thai tycoon Chatchai Yenbamroong, who was an executive in the telephone directory business of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and an advisor to former Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh. Yenbamroong’s business links to the Myanmar military started as early as 1995, when he received a ten-year licence from the military controlled Myanma Posts and Telecommunications to publish the Myanmar Yellow Pages. GPM is part of the Thailand-based Northern Gulf Petroleum group. Northern Gulf Petroleum is structured through shell companies in Bermuda, according to the GPM website, and has a holding company in Singapore. Chatchai Yenbamroong and Northern Gulf Petroleum have also established offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, according to the Offshore Leaks database of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and Singapore are corporate tax havens. Northern Gulf Petroleum was established in 2004 to bid in the 19th round of oil exploration and production concessions during the Thaksin administration, Thai media has reported. The company won concessions despite Northern Gulf Petroleum’s lack of qualifications, awarded after Thaksin was deposed in a military coup in 2006. Yenbamroong has also invested in oil and mining companies in Canada and Australia. GPM’s chair is Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing, who is the chair and director of SMART Group of Companies. It was first established in 1994, under Myanmar’s former dictatorship, servicing the military controlled petroleum industry. A second GPM director, Zarni Swe, is a director in subsidiaries of SMART Group of Companies. GPM director Ni Lwin Soe serves on the board of a number of Yenbamroong’s companies, including Thaisat Global’s Myanmar unit, Northern Gulf Petroleum Myanmar Limited, and Myanmar Gulf LNG Company Limited. On May 14, 2022, the illegitimate junta launched an invitation for bids for an operator and shareholder in the Yetagun Project with a May 20 deadline, in a rush to replace Petronas. Other bidders included a company linked to the crony Shwe Byain Phyu group. An industry source disclosed to Justice For Myanmar that GPM began taking over the project on May 31. Petronas is to complete the handover to GPM after the completion of its Acid Gas Removal Unit (AGRU) project. Petronas previously had a sales purchase agreement with GPM. GPM did not respond to questions from Justice For Myanmar regarding the resumption of operations, contract terms and whether they will be working with any joint operators. Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “Gulf Petroleum Myanmar’s takeover of the Yetagun gas project ensures the continued flow of funds to the Myanmar military junta, a terrorist organisation that commits war crimes and crimes against humanity with total impunity. “Gulf Petroleum Myanmar and its directors and shareholders must be held accountable for aiding and abetting the military’s crimes. “Their entry is enabled by the failure of the US, Japan and other governments to sanction the Myanmar military controlled Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. “We call for urgent and coordinated sanctions to block the junta’s access to oil and gas revenues. “Petronas, PTTEP and Nippon Oil are responsible for the human rights and environmental impacts of their disengagement from the Yetagun gas project. “They must disclose their human rights and environmental due diligence, consult with the National Unity Government, civil society and affected communities, and remedy negative impacts.”..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2022-06-28
Date of entry/update: 2022-06-28
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Description: "Activists are urging US President Joe Biden to impose sanctions on Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), which provides a financial lifeline to Myanmar’s junta. The European Union imposed sanctions on the firm in February. More than 637 domestic organizations, including protest committees, labor unions, women’s rights and educational groups and over 220,000 individuals signed an open letter to Biden, according to the Blood Money Campaign (BMC), which lobbies to financially isolate the junta. The BMC called on Biden to listen to Myanmar’s people and sanction MOGE. “The United States, it is time to stop protecting democracy only with words,” said Ko Ye, a BMC spokesman. The group reported that the junta seized around US$1.5 billion in gas revenue from state bank accounts after the 2021 coup to fund genocide and murder. “We don’t ask the US to provide weapons. We only ask the US to stop paying the fascist regime for natural resources,” Ko Ye said. MOGE has been a lifeline for military governments for decades and an estimated 50 percent of foreign currency came from natural gas and Myanmar earned around $1.5 billion from oil and gas in the 2020-21 financial year, according to pre-coup forecasts. The campaign urged the Biden administration to stop gas revenues reaching the junta by working with allies in Thailand and South Korea to divert income to accounts held until the civilian National Unity Government is recognized. It said gas companies and banks which traded with the junta should face money-laundering charges. It said the junta-controlled Myanma Foreign Trade Bank should face sanctions for money laundering. International oil and gas firms like Total, Chevron and Woodside left Myanmar after the coup but the junta’s investment minister Aung Naing Oo said only 10 percent of Myanmar’s oil and gas investment came from the three firms and their withdrawal did not impact the economy. China, the largest source, provides around 27 percent of oil and gas investment. Human rights organizations are urging Total not to pay the junta about $250 million it owes Myanmar. Since the coup in February last year, the regime has killed more than 1,800 people and it uses airstrikes, artillery, arson attacks, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests against civilians..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-05-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-05-11
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Description: "On March 25, it was reported in the media that ENEOS Holdings decided to disengage from the Yetagun gas project in Myanmar. The Japanese government (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) is also reportedly planning a withdrawal. This follows media reports in February that Mitsubishi Corporation decided to leave the project. Though much too late, it is a measure of progress that the Japanese investors are moving toward disengaging from this problematic project. However, Mekong Watch, Friends of the Earth (FoE) Japan, and Justice for Myanmar (JFM) remain concerned whether the disengagement will be conducted in a responsible manner. Mekong Watch, FoE Japan and Justice For Myanmar, again strongly urge the Japanese government, ENEOS (through its subsidiary JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration), and Mitsubishi Corporation to responsibly disengage from the project, after appropriate steps are taken to close the field, which is predicted to be near depletion. That would ensure future revenues do not flow to the Myanmar military, and that continued human rights and environmental impacts are avoided. Japan's government and corporations have been deeply involved in the Yetagun field which began production in 2000, and have been complicit in the project’s severe human rights impacts. JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration (a wholly-owned subsidiary of ENEOS) and its predecessor acquired rights to three offshore blocks in 1991-92 and developed the Yetagun field. Litigation documents and reports by NGOs have shown that in the late 90s, in order to "secure" the pipeline corridor to transport gas from the fields to Thailand, the Myanmar military was deployed along the pipeline route and subjected local ethnic communities to forced relocation, forced labor, looting, rape, and extrajudicial killings. The Yetagun project is currently operated by a consortium led by Malaysian state-owned Petronas Carigali, Thailand’s PTTEP, Japan’s Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar), with the military-controlled Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) in turn is jointly held by the Government of Japan through the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (50%), JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration (40%), and Mitsubishi Corporation (10%, acquired in 2013). Revenues from gas fields developed since 2000 have generated significant income for the Myanmar military. Since the attempted coup d'etat in 2021, we have consistently maintained that doing business with the military-controlled MOGE finances the military. Mekong Watch, FoE Japan and Justice For Myanmar have been requesting the Japanese stakeholders including ENEOS to ensure that revenue from the project will not flow to the military, and to disclose the payments they have made or plan to make in connection with the project. However, none of the Japanese investors have taken specific measures or disclosed any information about payments. In December, leaked documents published by Justice For Myanmar showed that the illegitimate junta leadership expressed strong interest in payments from the Yetagun project owed to MOGE. While under control of the illegal military junta, MOGE cannot take appropriate measures towards closing the gas field in an environmentally responsible way, which is likely to be costly. The Japanese investors have profited from this project, and should fulfill their responsibilities in cooperation with other project partners until the gas field is responsibly closed. We will continue to closely monitor the project until responsible disengagement is complete. Yuka Kiguchi, Director of Mekong Watch, stated, “The Yetagun project has generated significant revenue for the Myanmar military for most of its production period. ENEOS must take responsibility for having benefited the military through payments to MOGE, but this cannot be done by simply withdrawing from the project. ENEOS must disengage with consideration for human rights and the environment based on the ENEOS Group Human Rights Policy.” Yadanar Maung, Justice For Myanmar spokesperson, commented, “We cautiously welcome ENEOS’ and the Government of Japan’s decision to withdraw and call on them to exit responsibly, ensuring that the illegal junta does not profit from their divestment. In the process of withdrawal, ENEOS and the Government of Japan must engage with the National Unity Government, which is the legitimate government of Myanmar, and stop treating the illegal junta as a government. The junta is a terrorist organistion that uses gas revenues to commit atrocity crimes with total impunity.”..."
Source/publisher: Friends of the Earth Japan, Justice For Myanmar and Mekong Watch
2022-03-26
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Justice For Myanmar welcomes the latest coordinated sanctions as the illegal Myanmar military junta prepares to celebrate Armed Forces Day, a year after they massacred more than 160 people. The sanctions include major Myanmar arms brokers who are directly complicit in and profit from the Myanmar military’s atrocity crimes. Arms dealers sanctioned in one or more jurisdictions include Aung Hlaing Oo and his company Myanmar Chemical & Machinery; Naing Htut Aung and his company, International Gateways Group; Dr Aung Moe Myint and his company, Dynasty International; and Sit Taing Aung and his company, Yatanarpon Aviation Support. Sit Taing Aung is Mexico’s Honorary Consul to Myanmar. Justice For Myanmar calls on the Mexican government to immediately remove him from his position. Miya Win International, a Myanmar arms trader with links to Austria and Germany, was sanctioned by the UK. The US sanctioned the crony conglomerate Htoo Group, which provides arms and revenue to the terrorist military junta. The junta’s air force chief, General Htun Aung, was also sanctioned. Htun Aung is responsible for the indiscriminate airstrikes terrorising communities across Myanmar, and must be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “These new sanctions are an important step to disrupt the supply of arms and dual use goods that continue to flow to the terrorist Myanmar military junta. However, more urgently needs to be done to stop the military’s indiscriminate airstrikes, shelling, killings, forced displacement, arbitrarily arrests, torture and rape. Oil and gas remain the junta’s biggest source of foreign. We call on the US to follow the European Union in imposing targeted sanctions on Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The junta’s indiscriminate airstrikes are enabled by the undisrupted supply of jet fuel. We call for urgent sanctions to stop the sale of jet fuel to Myanmar. These sanctions yet again highlight the appalling inaction of regional democracies, which have failed to impose targeted sanctions in response to the military’s illegal attempted coup. We call on Australia, India, Japan and South Korea to stand with the people of Myanmar and impose sanctions to stop the flow of arms and funds to the junta."..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2022-03-26
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-26
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Description: "Paris, March 16, 2022 – On January 21, 2022, TotalEnergies announced its decision to withdraw from the Yadana field and from gas transportation company MGTC in Myanmar, both as operator and as shareholder, because the situation in this country no longer allowed TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution. Since then, TotalEnergies has initiated a due diligence process to ensure a responsible withdrawal for its stakeholders in Myanmar, particularly its employees and the local communities that have been supported by TotalEnergies for many years through its role as an operator in the MGTC gas pipeline area. On March 14, 2022, PTTEP International, a subsidiary of the Thai national energy company PTT, confirmed its willingness to take over as operator of Yadana and MGTC and, in line with this decision, to increase its direct stake in Yadana by taking over TotalEnergies’ equity share. Chevron has also decided to take over TotalEnergies’ equity share, thereby increasing its stake in Myanmar. As a reminder, in light of the exceptional situation, TotalEnergies has chosen to withdraw from Myanmar without seeking any financial compensation for its assets. In addition, PTTEP has expressed its willingness to take on all staff currently employed by the TotalEnergies affiliate in Myanmar. TotalEnergies is working closely with PTTEP to ensure that the transition occurs in a fair and orderly manner. With respect to our employees who have been ensuring the safety and efficiency of operations in Myanmar since January 21, TotalEnergies will help all those who wish to transfer to the new operator and will ensure that they continue to be employed under the same conditions. At the same time, TotalEnergies will work with PTTEP to ensure that the existing socio-economic development program led by TotalEnergies to support local communities living near the MGTC pipeline will continue after its withdrawal. To this end, TotalEnergies will allocate the resources necessary to a dedicated fund in order to contribute financially to the actions to be carried out by the future operator. TotalEnergies' withdrawal from Yadana and MGTC will be effective at the latest at the expiry of the 6-month contractual period, i.e. July 20, 2022, giving the Company and PTTEP enough time to ensure the safe and orderly transfer of the operatorship while ensuring a fair transition for our key stakeholders, our employees and local communities where we operate..."
Source/publisher: TotalEnergies
2022-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Corporate Accountability Myanmar (CAM) identifies the failures with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs in Myanmar.
Description: "After 30 years in Myanmar, Total is leaving the Yadana gas project in Tanintharyi region. Throughout the project, Total adopted a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy to improve its tarnished reputation associated with human rights violations committed by the Tatmadaw, which had been deployed to protect the project in the early 1990s. Numerically the results of Total’s CSR program looked impressive, considering the amount of beneficiaries, the number of schools constructed, healthcare improvements, and the amount of money Total spent on it. However, the company failed to acknowledge the shortcomings and failures of its CSR programs that left lasting negative impacts on communities. Through covert interviews with local people in the project areas, we identified three main failures of Total’s CSR efforts: its creation of dependency, a lack of sustainability, and a lack of accountability. While Total’s CSR reports portray a positive narrative of their local impact, our findings depict a different story. Total serves as a case study to show that CSR projects often fail by design, leaving affected communities by the Yadana gas pipeline with grievances and without remedy. Our methodology During November 2021, Corporate Accountability Myanmar (CAM) spoke with 16 local people who reside throughout seven villages in the northwest of Ye Phyu Township, Dawei District, Tanintharyi Region where the Yadana Gas pipeline passed through: Kanbauk, Phaungtaw, Daminseik, Ohnbinkwin, Michaunglaung, Zardi, and Kalaingaung. The seven villages are among the 33 villages where Total’s CSR program ran (see Map 1). Among the 16 people interviewed, seven were former Total staff. Two respondents were from the village communication committee (VCC) and the village bank committee. These are committees that were created by Total to support their CSR efforts. The remaining seven respondents are villagers with no official connection to Total’s CSR program village committees. Six respondents are female, 10 are male. We could not travel to the seven affected villages due to security concerns so, instead, we spoke with them on the phone for about one hour per interview. We followed up on any information that needed clarification after transcribing them all. A desk review was conducted on CSR reports and strategies of Total and Chevron, as well as supporting literature on CSR and accountability issues. The Yadana pipeline is one of three gas pipelines that runs through Tanintharyi region (Map 2). Map 2 shows that the three pipelines, the Yadana pipeline operated by Total, Yetakhon pipeline operated by Petronas and Zawtiga pipeline operated by PTTEP, run parallel passing through the region. As we will explain, some communities were affected by multiple projects at once. Total’s tarnished reputation In the early 1990s, Total entered Myanmar to extract gas from the Andaman sea with U.S based Unocal (now sold to Chevron). The Yadana gas field started production in 1998 and its shareholders were: Total (31.24%), Unocal/Chevron (28.26%), Thai state-owned PTT Exploration and Production (25.50%), and Myanmar state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (15%). The Pipeline is managed by Mottama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC), consisting of the same shareholders. Human rights violations associated with the construction of the pipeline infrastructure were well documented by a number of human rights organizations. These include Earth Rights International, International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Investor Responsibility Research Centre, Mon Information Center, Karen Human Rights group, and Amnesty International. Ethnic armed organizations, like the Karen National Union and the New Mon State Party, have also spoken out against the Yadana pipeline. These organizations criticize the project for the displacement or forced relocation of villagers for pipeline construction, land grabbing, and forced labour. With the arrival of Tatmadaw forces to secure the area, villagers were forced to build barracks for soldiers, clean and maintain the areas around the camps. They had to work as conscripted porters, transport supplies from camp to camp, or carry equipment for the troops during military offensives. Villagers were also asked to contribute funds for military camp construction. Other forms of harassment villagers faced included rape, intimidation, the forcible conscription of youth into the Tatmadaw, the confiscation of civilian vehicles for military activities, and theft of domestic animals.[1] Total and Unocal faced several lawsuits in the US and French courts due to these human rights violations associated with the Yadana project. Unocal settled a lawsuit with fourteen plaintiffs from Myanmar in 2005. After that, Unocal was sold to Chevron. Total also settled a lawsuit out of court. Total’s CSR program After construction on the Yadana pipeline began in 1995, Total started its CSR program in 13 villages to improve its tarnished reputation. Total’s CSR activities focused on access to healthcare, education, skills development, and stimulating the local economy’s livestock and agriculture sectors. Total expanded its CSR activities over the years by adding microfinance and access to solar energy. The coverage reached 33 villages in 2012. The main CSR activities took place in the pipeline area directly implemented by Total, in addition to the national projects implemented in partnership with national and international organizations. In 2020, Total stopped its CSR activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Total invested US $51.9 million in the CSR program between 1995 and 2019. To protect the environment, since 1998 the CSR program has also played an active role in the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve Project (TNRP), located in the pipeline area. Total’s CSR team was comprised of 49 members, 23 being locals from the area. There were also volunteers, including members of the village communication committee and the village bank committee. These committees liaise between Total’s CSR members and villagers. According to Total, the company “is committed to Corporate Social Responsibility as a core policy embedded in its operations.” Early on, its CSR projects “focused mainly on infrastructure and public health activities due to the needs of then very remote area where the services provided by the State were very limited.” It said the program gradually changed “towards the sustainable approach and community participation.” Total also declared that regular third-party impact assessments on the projects had been performed by Collaborative Learning and Action (CDA). and Myanmar Marketing, Research, and Development (MMRD). In 2014, a Stakeholder Relationship Management Exercise was done for the first time, and as the result, the “TEPM Stakeholder Holder Engagement Plan” was established and the CSR strategy was adjusted. CSR results according to Total’s numbers Total’s CSR reports describe in detail the number of beneficiaries, some of their stories, and improvements in health care and education the company accomplished in the pipeline area. For instance, in Dawei, 45 university students were provided scholarships every year. In Kanbauk, in 2019, Total hosted four interns from Dawei Technological University for the first time. In Yangon, the Yadana Welding Training Center offered the opportunity to acquire skills needed by industries in Myanmar. When it came to support for healthcare, six doctors paid weekly visits to four health centers to support 71 community health mobilizers and village health workers and provided specific recommendations to their patients. The scope of those activities evolved from curing conditions to care and prevention of non-communicable diseases. Total also supported a program established by Helen Keller International (HKI) to reinforce the existing cataract surgery infrastructure to reduce blindness significantly: a 50% decrease by 2020. Via their microfinance program, in 2019, they supported 1,572 vulnerable individuals, of whom 87% were women. These results may look impressive, but they are outweighed by the negative impact of the Yadana pipeline, and problems caused by Total’s CSR activities themselves. These CSR reports only tell a small part of the story. Villagers’ grievances towards Total’s CSR program Despite the benefits accrued through these programs, when we spoke with local people, we found grievances that were unresolved and undisclosed in the CSR reports. The issues revealed during these interviews indicated that the Yadana CSR program was, by design, flawed. In the following sections, we will outline the ways that the Total CSR program failed in relation to its stated aim of empowering communities. We highlight three key findings. First, it creates dependency and lacks sustainability. Second, accountability was not embedded in the program. Third, the program failed to effectively engage with the affected community, and identify issues related to the pipeline project to ensure affected people and communities get remedy. Creating dependency Our research demonstrates that villagers became increasingly dependent on Total over the years, as they promised to provide services and infrastructure to villagers. Yet, Total did not fulfill the services that it claimed to provide and shifted its policy in the 2010s without adequately consulting with villagers. One respondent noted that “since 1996, [the] company provided public services that the government needed to provide and CSR villages relied on the company rather than the government.” This created problems when the company shifted its policy in the late 2010s by moving away from taking on the duties of the government. It no longer engaged in projects like building school infrastructure, roads, and bridges. In Ohnbinkwin Village, one of the villages most affected by the company’s operations, villagers asked Total to improve the village road and rebuild the village entrance bridge, which had been damaged by a natural disaster. The company refused to provide financial assistance for these projects, and villagers protested against the company for not fulfilling their demand. Villagers also expressed dissatisfaction regarding access to electricity. Villagers said since the 1990s, Total promised electricity for villages in Kanbauk area where the pipeline passed through. While electricity is the responsibility of the government, Total’s false promises aroused grievances. At that time, villages in Kanbauk area relied on private generators that distributed electricity from 6 pm and 9:30 pm and cost each household between MMK 3,000 to MMK 5,000. In 2009, Dawei Development Public Company Ltd began to provide 24-hour electricity to these villages. The electricity was generated by diesel and cost MMK 500 to 800 per unit. In 2017, the NLD government managed to reduce the electricity cost to MMK 200 in Dawei district by giving permission to Petron and Trans Company to generate electricity by using gas turbines, and the government negotiated to buy gas for the gas turbines from the Zawtika pipeline. This showed that false expectations created by the company only aroused the community’s mistrust of the company. By setting unfulfilled expectations and taking on the responsibility of the government, the company left the community dependent on the company for more than ten years. The community felt aggrieved at the company when these expectations were not met. The impact of dependency leads to an unsustainable pathway. Lack of sustainability Total’s CSR projects did not meet villagers’ actual needs or current economic realities in Myanmar. Due to mismatches with ground realities, some of its programs did not produce sustainable results. One respondent remarked that villagers see agricultural impacts as the most ineffective consequence of the project. One example is the introduction of new crops that did not match the on-the-ground reality, which ultimately damaged farmers’ incomes. In addition, introducing crops such as oil palm and rubber had a negative environmental impact, even though villagers’ plantations are relatively small compared with commercial oil palm plantations in Tanintharyi. One respondent noted that “although the company’s CSR team engaged with the village community, they put their own priorities first rather than what the community needed.” For instance, in Thaechaung village, the Yadana CSR team encouraged villagers to clear villagers’ cashew nut orchards and grow oil palm plants. At the time, in the early 2000s, oil palm was backed by the government. The CSR team assumed that the palm oil manufacturing industry would grow and that this change would increase income for farmers. However, ten years later, Myanmar still exports raw palm oil products to Malaysia, where these materials are processed. Myanmar continues to import palm oil. As the result, villagers cleared those oil palm trees and grew rubber instead—a more profitable crop. In this case study, neither the company nor the villagers benefitted from the project. The respondents felt that both the company and villagers wasted their resources over the course of the project. This case shows that the CSR agriculture project led to unsustainable outcomes in terms of both its failure to produce long-term incomes for villagers and in terms of the adverse environmental effects of oil palm cultivation. Lack of accountability for negative impacts of the pipeline project Our research highlights three negative impacts of the Yadana pipeline, and the related Tanintharyi Nature Reserve, for which Total could have taken more accountability. Total responded to these negative impacts by introducing more CSR programs, without addressing the negative impacts of the pipeline. Ineffective community engagement In 2010, near the southern part of the coastal fishing village of Daminseik, the Yadana gas pipeline appeared on the beach, exposed due to water and wave erosion. To prevent further deterioration, Total built a wall with rocks. The structure was about seven miles tall and a half-mile in length from north-south. After that structure was built, around 2012-13, approximately 40 houses adjacent to the sea including the road were destroyed in a sea bank collapse. Villagers suspected it was due to the new structure Total built. The company refused the accusation and said that they studied the consequences before building the structure, and the collapse was due to climate change. Villagers also stated that they were unaware of consultations conducted before the construction of the structure. Total’s response was to have their CSR team distribute basic household commodities and foods to affected households. As one respondent noted, “the company did whatever they thought was right without listening to the community.” Not only did Total neglect to consult the community being affected by the structure, they also failed to listen and refused to pay the compensation that villagers demanded after the harm was done. Land loss and failure to restore livelihoods Total gave lump sum compensation to villagers who lost their land in the 1990s as a result of the Yadana pipeline project. However, respondents said 90% of villagers who got compensation in Ohnbinkwin village became landless and jobless. Some respondents blamed those villagers for not saving the compensation money they were given. Some said villagers did not know how to manage the large sum of money. Others thought the company should have adopted a long-term plan to help those villagers so that they had some means of income generation. The practice of giving away money as compensation without following any livelihood restoration plans fall short of international standards. According to the International Finance Corporation, livelihood restoration plans are necessary to ensure people who were dependent on the land for their whole life have the skills and the ability to change livelihoods. Otherwise, the same international standards suggest replacing the lost land with other land of equal value wherever possible to ensure affected villagers’ right to livelihoods is not impacted. Total only understood their responsibility as being to compensate the villagers who lost their land. They valued this land in strictly financial terms. The company neglected its responsibility to ensure the pipeline project would not negatively impact those villagers whose long-term livelihoods were dependent on the lost land. Impact on fishing In villages like Kyaukthayan and Phyunet, where villagers fish by casting nets far out into the sea, issues with the villagers’ fishing nets becoming tangled with the pipelines caused damage to local livelihoods. In this area, the Yadana pipeline (operated by Total) intersects with two other pipelines: the Yetagun pipeline (operated by Petronas) and the Zawtika pipeline (operated by PTTEP) (see Map 2). The nets snagged on parts of the offshore pipeline infrastructures that had aged. Villagers then had to bear the cost of repairing the damage to their nets and mitigating the disruptions to their fishing activity. No pipeline operators took responsibility when complaints were lodged. According to the respondents, during the NLD government, civil society organizations and the media heard villagers’ voices and relevant authorities from the fishery department tried to solve the issue in 2019. However, Covid delayed their field visit. In another case, villagers along the coast, who had, for generations, relied on fishing for their livelihoods were restricted from fishing during pipeline maintenance that lasted around one to two weeks per year. This led to a reduction in their income. Total, in Chapter 5 of the 2020 Universal Registration, under “non-financial performance: value creation for host regions,” mentions that “in Myanmar, the offshore pre-project baseline study detailed the issues relating to fisheries. It quantifies the potential impact on the entire fishing value chain for each village by category of fishermen and by type of fish caught and processed in the region.” However, on the ground, local respondents did not seem to be aware of this information. Total and other pipeline operators neglected their responsibility to ensure that their operations did not adversely impact communities’ livelihoods, nor were they held accountable for incurring financial loss in those villages. CSR was designed to veil such negative impact and companies’ responsibilities to respect villagers’ rights to livelihood. Environmental impacts of conservation projects Respondents also raised concerns related to the Tanintharyi Natural Reserve (TNR). The TNR covers almost 420,000 acres in Yebyu and Dawei townships, bordering Mon State and Thailand. It is funded by the three pipeline operators in Tanintharyi: Total, operator of the Yadana gas project, Thai PTT Exploration and Production, operator of Zawtika gas project and Malaysian Petronas, operator of Yetagun gas project. The project is managed by the Myanmar government with technical support from the Wildlife Conservation Society. The conservation area claims to compensate for the impacts of three gas pipelines, the Yadana, Yetagun and Zawtika. Despite that, respondents feel that the money invested in this project is a waste because of illegal logging and gold mining in the reserve area. Total reported that they provided USD 1.8 million to the TNRP during the 2013-2017 period as part of the Yadana CSR program. Respondents lodged a complaint about illegal logging and mining in the area with Total. However, Total responded that they can only provide financial assistance and that villagers have no right to interfere with the project’s activities. Some respondents assumed that the company might not have a say since the area is controlled by the Tatmadaw. Regardless, respondents said they still would like to see the company do something to prevent that issue by, for example, raising it with relevant stakeholders in the project so as to adopt measures to hold responsible parties accountable. Others have already raised significant issues with the TNR including displacement, loss of livelihood, loss of traditional knowledge, practices and cultures, militarization and increased police presence, land dispossession, loss of landscape, and loss of sense of place due to a lack of consultation with Karen indigenous people in the area. The three pipeline operators did not consider the potential impact of the TNR on indigenous people. Due to a lack of meaningful and effective consultation with indigenous people in the area, the conservation project created negative externalities. As a result, the indigenous people lost forests and lands they had depended on for their livelihood, and their traditional cultures and practices. Troops deployed to the area to protect the conservation zone threatened their sense of security. Pipeline operators neglected these issues and failed to take responsibility for these impacts. Conclusion Ten years ago, in 2011, the UN issued its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). While reflecting on ten years of the UNGPs, the UN stated that they have shifted the focus from corporate philanthropy to accountability as an essential feature of responsible business. This implies that CSR programs should be an added value after meeting the threshold of ensuring accountability for any human rights issues associated with the project. However, the evidence we collected reveals that the Yadana CSR program produced negative impacts, despite Total’s stated commitments to CSR and responsible business practices. Total and its partner, Chevron, claims that they are responsible companies––this may seem credible with the first glance at Total’s CSR results. However, our analysis shows that embedding CSR as a core policy without integrating accountability, sustainability, and access to remedy in its operations left affected people and communities with grievances and without remedy. Total failed to diligently identify these issues related to the operations of the Yadana pipeline project and did not address them adequately. They managed to keep their critics at bay by portraying only a positive narrative of their local impact. Our findings and analysis also imply similar issues with other oil operators still operating in Myanmar that have similar reputational issues. Corporate Accountability Myanmar (CAM) is a group of local researchers formed in 2020 to conduct research on corporate accountability issues in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
2022-03-10
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The special envoy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for Myanmar and Cambodia's foreign minister Prak Sokhonn announced that he is to visit Myanmar for four days on 20-23 March 2022. This comes after some of the ASEAN member countries criticized the Myanmar junta for making no progress in resolving the crisis that has unfolded in the country since the military coup last year. In January 2022, ASEAN Chair and Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen visited Myanmar while ASEAN members including Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore demanded Hun Sen for consultation with ASEAN on Myanmar. ASEAN also has denied the participation of the junta leader Aung Min Hlaing at the ASEAN summit in December and the junta-appointed Wunna Maung Lwin at the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in February 2022. The United States also announced that a non-political representative will be invited to the US- ASEAN Summit as ASEAN also has had its decision to invite a non-political representative from Myanmar to the summit in Washington on 28-29 March. On both occasions when ASEAN decided to invite non-political representatives from Myanmar, the junta refused and condemned the decision. Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi pleaded not guilty during her court case on corruption charges because she allegedly accepted $600,000 and seven gold bars from a political ally. She is also facing 10 additional corruption charges against her in junta courts in Naypyitaw, apart from the charges of violating the Official Secrets Act and alleged election fraud in the 2020 Myanmar General Elections. A research group in Myanmar, Data for Myanmar, has announced that more than 6,100 Myanmar citizens' houses were burned by the military junta since the military coup, with more than 60% reportedly in Sagaing Region. The heavy fighting between the junta forces and civil resistance forces continues across the country, especially in Chin, Kayah, Karen and Kachin states and Sagaing, Magwe, Mandalay and Yangon regions. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, an international research group collecting data across the world in conflict zones also announced over 13,000 political violence and protest cases reported in Myanmar in 2021 that nearly 11,000 incidents were involved with fatalities. The ultra-nationalist group Ma Ba Tha is to lead a campaign to encourage civilians living in people’s resistance forces strongholds to crack down on resistance groups by joining militias led by ordained Buddhists. Media also have reported that the monks from the Yadanar Kan Myint Htale Monastery were armed. The junta’s State Administration Council (SAC) also announced that it had distributed 2,080 weapons to 77 paramilitary groups. The junta freed the ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu from the Ma Ba Tha group, after dropping sedition charges filed during the rule of the ousted NLD government in 2019. Amid the junta’s increasing airstrikes against civilians, killing civilians and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes that has created a humanitarian crisis, 55 British Parliamentarians from 9 different political parties and Independent MPs have called for aviation fuel sanctions against the Myanmar junta. The European Union has imposed sanctions against Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and for more entities last week after more than a year of advocacy by the Myanmar civil society and rights groups. MOGE is the junta’s biggest single source of revenue, responsible for financing its repression against Myanmar civilians. Despite the criticisms from the rights groups, Norwegian telecom group Telenor will be selling the business to Myanmar conglomerate Shwe Byain Phyu (SBP) controlled by the junta affiliates and Lebanese investment firm M1 Group, the sources said, adding that the $100 million in retained earnings are held at a Myanmar bank. As of 4 March 2022, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) recorded that 1,603 people have been killed by the junta. 9,507 people are currently under detention. 84 have been sentenced to death and 1,973 are evading arrest warrants..."
Source/publisher: Asian Network for Free Elections (Bangkok)
2022-03-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-08
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Description: "Statement on the supply of fuel to the terrorist regime (2/2022)..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Commerce, National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-24
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Description: "The National Unity Government (NUG) would like to express our profound appreciation of the European Union (EU) and its member states' continued support of various efforts to restore democracy and civilian government. We recognize and deeply value EU's contribution to Myanmar's democratic transition and the peace process in the past few years. We welcome the appointment of Ambassador Igor Driesmans as the European Union's Special Envoy for Myanmar. We are looking forward to engaging and collaborating with His Excellency to realize our goals for Federal Democracy and eliminate all kinds of dictatorship in Myanmar. The NUG lauds the adoption of the fourth round of sanctions against 22 individuals affiliated with the military regime and four companies, including Htoo Group, IGE (International Group of Entrepreneurs), Mining Enterprise 1 (ME 1), and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). These companies generate a significant amount of revenue, especially the MOGE, which enables the junta to continue to commit crimes against humanity against the people of Myanmar. The sanction is a powerful instrument in cutting the junta’s sources of revenue, which is a critical pressure point against Min Aung Hlaing and his self-styled the State Administration Council (SAC). It has been a year since the military junta robbed us of our rights, undermined our path to democratic transition, dragged the country to instability, and inflicted humanitarian catastrophe. While the rest of the world is dealing with the lethal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the junta continues to indulge itself in unspeakable crimes against the people. Millions of people continue to flee to avoid the junta's brutality. Communities are continuously torched to ashes and indiscriminately bombed. Thousands continue to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and murdered. The people's fundamental rights are continuously being violated and freedom of expression repressed. The instability induced by the junta has already led to an unprecedented economic crisis. Our neighbors have been bearing the coup's cross-border humanitarian and economic impact. The only way for all of these crimes and atrocities to stop is to restore democracy and eliminate the military dictatorship. Thus, the NUG strongly urges other countries to follow the EU's sanction against the junta’s revenue streams. We also urge the EU and the international community at large to put pressure against the countries that continue to engage in weapons trade with the military junta..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Myanmar - NUG
2022-02-23
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-24
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Description: "Governments and companies in South East Asia that have provided support for Myanmar’s military are revealed in a new section of Justice For Myanmar’s Cartel Finance Map. The map visualises the business links that provide arms, services, finance and investment to the military. Through these business links, the military has effectively financed the Rohingya genocide and the junta’s current campaign of terror against the Myanmar people. Following its attempted coup in February 2021, the Myanmar military has murdered over 2,000 civilians and arrested over 12,000 more. The military receives revenue through the business entities that it controls, including Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), Myanmar Economic Corporation Ltd (MEC) and Myanma Economic Holdings Public Co. Ltd (MEHL), among others. Governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are directly implicated through their business interests in Myanmar – via state-owned enterprises, oil and gas companies, arms manufacturers, stock exchanges, banks, significant individual investors and more. Based on the findings of extensive research, the following are some examples from the map of the economic interests that link Southeast Asian governments and companies to Myanmar’s military junta. Supplying weapons Filipino arms manufacturer United Defense Manufacturing Corporation (UDMC) shipped 450 kilos of guns to Myanmar as the military launched its campaign of genocide against the Rohingya in August 2017. Prior to this transaction, UDMC had spent years pursuing a business relationship with the Myanmar military, offering technology transfer and cooperation on arms manufacturing. In 2020, Indonesia disclosed that its state-owned enterprise, PT. Pindad, has exported bullets to Myanmar. PT. Pindad has a cooperation agreement with arms broker, True North Co. Ltd, which is owned by the Htoo Htoo Shein Oo, the son of the Myanmar military junta’s planning and finance minister, Win Shein. ‍Energy sector investments that fund the junta‍ State-owned oil company, Brunei Energy Services & Trading, has a joint investment in three oil blocks in Myanmar with International Group of Entrepreneurs (IGE). IGE is a crony conglomerate owned by Ne Aung, the son of a former military lieutenant colonel and minister for industry under the previous military dictatorship. While development of the blocks is currently suspended, the company owes USD$20 million to the junta-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The Government of Thailand is a major investor in Myanmar’s energy sector. PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd (PTTEP), majority owned by the Thai government, operates the Zawtika gas field and is an investor in the Yadana project in Myanmar. The company is positioned to take over as operator of the Yadana project as well, following decisions by current operator Total, and Chevron, to divest from the project. In 2017-18, the Myanmar government received over USD$40 million for the Zawtika project and over $250 million for the Yadana project. These funds now flow to the junta. Profiting from surveillance‍ The Government of Vietnam also invests in Myanmar’s infrastructure via Viettel, a telecommunications company owned by its Ministry of National Defence. Viettel Global is a joint investor, alongside a Myanmar military conglomerate, in mobile telephone company, Mytel. Mytel is controlled by – and is a major source of revenue and technology for – the Myanmar military. Mytel is also known to conduct surveillance on customers and support the military’s communications infrastructure in cooperation with the Myanmar army’s Directorate of Signals..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2022-02-17
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-18
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Description: "Mekong Watch, Friends of the Earth Japan (FoE Japan) and Justice For Myanmar (JFM) cautiously welcome media reports about Mitsubishi Corporation’s stated intention to withdraw from the Yetagun gas project in Myanmar, citing deteriorating profitability as the gas field nears the end of its life. We call on Mitsubishi to ensure that their exit is responsible and to prevent further complicity in human rights violations associated with the project. A responsible exit by Mitsubishi Corporation must include the withholding of revenue from the project that is being paid to the Myanmar military junta, which helps to finance the military’s campaign of terror. In December, leaked documents published by Justice For Myanmar showed that the Yetagun project would earn the military junta US$22.37 million over six months from 21 October, 2021. In the documents, the illegitimate junta leadership expressed a direct interest in Yetagun project payments owed to Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), implicating Mitsubishi and other partners in the project. Mekong Watch and FoE Japan have been requesting Mitsubishi and other Japanese stakeholders in the Yetagun project to ensure that revenue from the project will not flow to the military, and to disclose the payments they have made or plan to make in connection with the project. However, Mitsubishi and other Japanese stakeholders have failed to act on both these points. In January, civil society organisations including Mekong Watch, FoE Japan and JFM wrote to investors of Japanese businesses with links to the military junta, including Mitsubishi Corporation, calling for engagement to cut off revenue flows to the junta. The Yetagun project is operated by a consortium led by Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas Carigali, Thailand’s PTTEP, Japan’s Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar), with the military-controlled MOGE. Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) is jointly held by JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration (a subsidiary of ENEOS Holdings), the Government of Japan and Mitsubishi Corporation. So far, the Government of Japan and ENEOS have not expressed any intention to withdraw from the project. Yuka Kiguchi, Director of Mekong Watch, stated, “The Yetagun field began production in 2000, and along with the other gas fields, was an important source of revenue for the military regime in Myanmar at the time and likely helped to expand the military budget. Mitsubishi Corporation, which entered the Yetagun consortium in 2013, shares responsibility over the atrocities committed in Myanmar today. Simply withdrawing from the Yetagun project citing deteriorating profitability means that the company is not taking full responsibility. In addition to the Yetagun project, Mitsubishi Corporation is participating in problematic projects in Myanmar such as the Landmark project and Thilawa SEZ (Special Economic Zone) without accountability or sufficient consideration for human rights. The company should raise its standards and for Yetagun, withdraw with full environmental and social considerations." Yadanar Maung, Justice For Myanmar spokesperson, commented, “Mitsubishi Corporation has been complicit in financing the illegal military junta’s grave human rights violations and atrocity crimes through their investment in the Yetagun project. As part of divestment, Mitsubishi should take concrete steps to prevent the Yetagun project’s continuing bankrolling of the Myanmar military. As a leading Japanese corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation should push other project partners to place Yetagun revenues in an escrow account, in consultation with the National Unity Government (NUG). “Mitsubishi Corporation’s withdrawal from Yetagun should send a strong message to the Malaysian and Thai governments, who are the biggest shareholders in the project, through Petronas and PTTEP respectively. As members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Thailand and Malaysia’s business with the terrorist junta undermines ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, providing millions to the military that finances continued violence...”
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2022-02-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-18
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Sub-title: Energy Companies’ Withdrawal Underscores Need for New Sanctions
Description: " Myanmar’s military will continue to collect massive revenues from natural gas and other extractive sectors unless new targeted sanctions block foreign currency payments supporting the junta’s abusive rule, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 21, 2022, TotalEnergies and Chevron announced plans to leave Myanmar, but natural gas revenue to the junta will continue because other companies will take over their operations. The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, and other concerned governments should now adopt a common position to impose sanctions on all natural gas revenues. Thailand’s state-owned PTT and South Korea’s POSCO, the two main energy companies remaining in Myanmar, should signal their support for such measures. “After nearly a year in power, Myanmar’s junta is continuing to commit horrific abuses without facing significant costs from the international community,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Junta leaders are not going to turn away from their brutality and oppression unless governments impose more significant financial pressure on them.” Natural gas projects in Myanmar generate over US$1 billion in foreign revenue for the junta annually, its single largest source of foreign currency revenue. The money is transmitted in US dollars to the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and other military-controlled bank accounts in foreign countries in the form of fees, taxes, royalties, and revenues from the export of natural gas, most of which travels by pipeline to Thailand or China. In its announcement on January 21, TotalEnergies said that the company was withdrawing from Myanmar due to the deteriorating human rights situation, which “no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country.” TotalEnergies, in partnership with Chevron and PTT, has since the 1990s operated the Yadana gas project, one of the country’s largest fields. Chevron sent a brief statement to journalists the same day, stating that it was making “a planned and orderly transition that will lead to an exit from the country.” TotalEnergies’ announcement reiterated points made by its CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, in a January 18 letter to Human Rights Watch, stating that the company had informed French and US authorities that it “supports the implementation of such targeted sanctions” to stop financial flows to MOGE. Since staging a coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military has carried out a nationwide crackdown on anti-junta protesters, activists, and the political opposition, featuring widespread killings, torture, and other abuses, amounting to crimes against humanity. It has renewed military operations in ethnic minority areas that have resulted in numerous violations of the laws of war, including war crimes. TotalEnergies has faced growing pressure over the past year from across Myanmar civil society as well as from international rights groups and institutional investors to suspend payments to the junta or support sanctions that would block such payments. Following the coup, the US, Canada, UK, and EU member states imposed targeted economic sanctions on junta leaders and companies controlled by the Myanmar military, but not on MOGE or payments it receives. The French and the US governments, as well as the EU, have not supported such measures. The US and EU in particular are in key positions to impose sanctions since payments in the gas sector – even those handled by non-US and non-EU companies – are typically made in US dollars and involve correspondent US and EU banks. Sanctions by the US and EU can stop payments made in US dollars or Euros even by banks in Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, and other locations, since those banks always ultimately need correspondent US and EU banks – which are subject to US and EU law – to finalize, or “settle,” large dollar or Euro transactions. When TotalEnergies and Chevron depart Myanmar, the flow of funds to the junta will not be disrupted. TotalEnergies reported that it will continue operating the Yadana field and pipeline for six months according to existing agreements, which also stipulate that “in the event of withdrawal, TotalEnergies’ interests will be shared between the current partners, unless they object to such allocation, and that the role of operator will be taken over by one of the partners.” PTT, the remaining foreign project partner in Yadana, which currently holds 25.5 percent of the project, announced it was “considering potential directions of the Yadana project.” The largest gas revenues that are paid to junta-controlled accounts are made via PTT, which purchases approximately 80 percent of Myanmar’s exported natural gas from Yadana as well as the Zawtika gas field, which it operates itself. In addition, PTT owns stakes in joint ventures with POSCO, which transports and sells gas to China. Human Rights Watch has previously written to all of these companies and their shareholders, urging them to support sanctions on gas revenues. “Energy company departures from Myanmar will be only gestures so long as the junta keeps making money,” Sifton said. “The US and EU urgently need to impose measures that will have real economic impact on the junta, if there is to be any progress on human rights.”..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
2022-01-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Paris, January 21st, 2022 – Following the coup of 1st February 2021 in Myanmar, TotalEnergies has firmly condemned on several occasions the abuses and human rights violations taking place there. Since then, our Company's decisions have been guided by clear principles: to halt all our ongoing projects, but to continue to produce gas from the Yadana field, which is essential for supplying electricity to the local Burmese and Thai population, to protect our employees from the risk of criminal prosecution or forced labour, and, insofar as is materially and legally possible, to limit the financial flows received by the national oil company MOGE. Despite the actions taken, TotalEnergies has not been able to meet the expectations of many stakeholders (shareholders, international and Burmese civil society organisations), who are calling to stop the revenues going to the Burmese state through the state-owned company MOGE from the Yadana field production. In fact, this is materially impossible for TotalEnergies, as most of the payments for the sale of the gas are made directly by the Thai company PTT, the buyer of the exported gas. TotalEnergies has also approached the French authorities to consider putting in place targeted sanctions that would confine all the financial flows of the various partners to escrow accounts without shutting down the gas production. TotalEnergies has not identified any means for doing so. While our Company considers that its presence in a country allows it to promote its values, including outside its direct sphere of operations, the situation, in terms of human rights and more generally the rule of law, which have kept worsening in Myanmar since the coup of February 2021, has led us to reassess the situation and no longer allows TotalEnergies to make a sufficiently positive contribution in the country. As a result, TotalEnergies has decided to initiate the contractual process of withdrawing from the Yadana field and from MGTC in Myanmar, both as operator and as shareholder, without any financial compensation for TotalEnergies. This withdrawal has been notified today to TotalEnergies' partners in Yadana and MGTC and will be effective at the latest at the expiry of the 6-month contractual period. The agreements also stipulate that, in the event of withdrawal, TotalEnergies' interests will be shared between the current partners, unless they object to such allocation, and that the role of operator will be taken over by one of the partners. During this notice period, TotalEnergies will continue to act as a responsible operator in order to ensure the continuity of gas deliveries for the benefit of the population. TotalEnergies has indicated to its partners its willingness to ease the transition to the new operator and facilitate the transfer of staff who so wish. *** About TotalEnergies in Myanmar TotalEnergies has been a partner (31.24%) and operator of the Yadana gas field (Blocks M5 and M6) in Myanmar since 1992, alongside its partners Unocal-Chevron (28.26%), PTTEP (25.5%), a subsidiary of the Thai national energy company PTT, and the Burmese state-owned company MOGE (15%). The Yadana field produces around 6 billion cubic meters per year of gas of which about 70% is exported to Thailand where it is sold to the national company PTT and 30% to the national company MOGE for domestic use. This gas helps to provide about half of the electricity in the Burmese capital Yangoon and supplies the western part of Thailand. Gas is exported to Thailand through a pipeline operated by MGTC that carries gas from the Yadana field to the Burmese-Thai border, over 400 kilometers. The shareholders of MGTC are the same as the partners in the Yadana field and in the same proportions. About TotalEnergies TotalEnergies is a global multi-energy company that produces and markets energies: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Our 105,000 employees are committed to energy that is ever more affordable, cleaner, more reliable and accessible to as many people as possible. Active in more than 130 countries, TotalEnergies puts sustainable development in all its dimensions at the heart of its projects and operations to contribute to the well-being of people. Media Relations: +33 (0)1 47 44 46 99 l [email protected] l @TotalEnergiesPR Investor Relations: +33 (0)1 47 44 46 46 l [email protected] Cautionary Note The terms “TotalEnergies”, “TotalEnergies company” or “Company” in this document are used to designate TotalEnergies SE and the consolidated entities that are directly or indirectly controlled by TotalEnergies SE. Likewise, the words “we”, “us” and “our” may also be used to refer to these entities or to their employees. The entities in which TotalEnergies SE directly or indirectly owns a shareholding are separate legal entities. TotalEnergies SE has no liability for the acts or omissions of these entities. This document may contain forward-looking information and statements that are based on a number of economic data and assumptions made in a given economic, competitive and regulatory environment. They may prove to be inaccurate in the future and are subject to a number of risk factors. Neither TotalEnergies SE nor any of its subsidiaries assumes any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking information or statement, objectives or trends contained in this document whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Information concerning risk factors, that may affect TotalEnergies’ financial results or activities is provided in the most recent Registration Document, the French-language version of which is filed by TotalEnergies SE with the French securities regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), and in the Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)..."
Source/publisher: TotalEnergies
2022-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Clear Path for US, France, EU to Block Gas Revenue Payments to Junta
Description: "(Paris) – The French company TotalEnergies has signaled support for targeted sanctions on Myanmar’s natural gas revenues to block the country’s abusive military junta from profiting from hundreds of millions of dollars in payments, Human Rights Watch said today. TotalEnergies acknowledged the shift in a response to a letter from Human Rights Watch urging the company to support sanctions to stop gas payments to Myanmar military-controlled entities. TotalEnergies has operated the Yadana gas project in Myanmar since the 1990s, which pays revenues to the junta-controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). “The fact that both TotalEnergies and human rights groups now support sanctions on Myanmar’s gas revenues leaves the US and European Union without any excuses to delay action,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “These governments should immediately impose measures vitally needed to target funds that pay for the junta’s abusive rule.” In a January 18, 2022 letter to Human Rights Watch, the TotalEnergies CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, said the company had spoken with French and US authorities concerning the implementation of targeted sanctions on gas revenue flows and said that it “will not only comply with any sanction decision from the European or American authorities but also supports the implementation of such targeted sanctions.” TotalEnergies also formally asked the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put in place sanctions that would create “a legal framework to respond to calls requesting us to stop the financial flows” to MOGE. Since overthrowing the democratically elected government on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military has carried out nationwide crackdowns on anti-junta protesters, activists, journalists, and the political opposition, killing more than 1,400 people and amounting to crimes against humanity. Renewed attacks on ethnic minority areas have resulted in numerous war crimes. TotalEnergies has faced growing calls over the past year to suspend payments to the junta from Myanmar civil society and labor organizations, as well as pressure from institutional investors. Since the coup, the US, Canada, United Kingdom, and EU member states have imposed targeted economic sanctions on junta leaders and several conglomerates and companies owned or controlled by the Myanmar military, but not on MOGE or payments it receives. The French government of President Emmanuel Macron has not supported such measures. The administration of US President Joe Biden has been unwilling to impose sanctions on gas payments unilaterally without the support of France and other EU nations. The US and France should now reach a common position on imposing such sanctions, Human Rights Watch said. Natural gas projects in Myanmar generate over US $1 billion in foreign revenue for the junta annually, its single largest source of foreign currency revenue. The money is transmitted in US dollars to MOGE or other military-controlled bank accounts in foreign countries, in the form of fees, taxes, royalties, and dividends from the export of natural gas, most of which travels by pipeline to Thailand or China. The largest gas revenues paid are made via the majority Thai state-owned PTT, which purchases approximately 80 percent of Myanmar’s exported natural gas from joint ventures owned with TotalEnergies, Chevron, and MOGE. PTT separately owns stakes in joint ventures with the South Korean company POSCO, which transports and sells gas to China. Human Rights Watch has previously written to all of these companies and their shareholders, urging them to support sanctions on gas revenue. “TotalEnergies’ support for sanctions should be an example to other energy companies operating in Myanmar, as well as to the Thai government, the single biggest buyer of Myanmar gas,” Sifton said. “Board members and institutional investors in other companies should push them to follow TotalEnergies’ decision.” One critique of sanctions is that they might shut down gas operations completely, harming the general population. However, targeted sanctions on revenue and tax payments would not disrupt operations, just the flow of funds to the junta. The EU and US are in a key position to impose sanctions since payments for gas operations are made in US dollars and involve multinational banks that fall under the jurisdiction of EU and US law. Sanctions by those authorities can stop payments made by banks in Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, and other locations because foreign banks must comply with EU and US authorities when they ultimately require EU and US banks to process, or “settle,” Euro or dollar transactions. “With TotalEnergies’ announcement, governments now have no reason to oppose or avoid tough measures that show support to the millions of people in Myanmar who want justice and accountability,” Sifton said. “Junta leaders are only going to turn away from their brutality and oppression if the economic costs of their abuses are too great for them to bear.”..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
2022-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The junta is increasingly relying on troops and mines to secure its infrastructure, including the pipelines sending fossil fuel from the Rakhine coast to China
Description: "The junta recently placed landmines around oil and gas pipelines running through Hsipaw Township in northern Shan State to China, according to the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF). An unconfirmed number of military mines have been set up near a pumping station in forested areas along both sides of the Mandalay-Lashio highway, the rights group said in a Tuesday statement. The site is just outside Nawng Arng village in Hawng Haeng village tract, some 15km west of Hsipaw town. SHRF reported that in November, a Myanmar army sergeant informed Hawng Haeng’s headman of their use of the landmines in the area for “security reasons,” despite objections by locals. The military has reportedly prohibited villagers from entering the mined area, which they have long used to gather edible plants and hunt for wild game. “The mines are for [the military’s] own security, not for the locals’ security,” SHRF’s Sai Hor Hseng told Myanmar Now. The pipelines, constructed in 2011 and 2013, carry gas and oil nearly 800km from the Rakhine State coast to China. One-third of the structure is located in northern Shan State, where locals have long opposed the pipelines due to the risks associated with possible leaks or explosions, SHRF’s statement said. “It’s very dangerous for the people there, and it has become even worse during this crisis,” the group’s spokesperson told Myanmar Now, referring to the nearly one-year period since the February 1 coup. Following the coup and subsequent attacks on military infrastructure by armed resistance forces, around 20 junta soldiers began guarding the pumping station in Nawng Arng, from Infantry Battalion 23 and Light Infantry Battalions 503 and 504, according to SHRF. “There is conflict everywhere in the country so the army is afraid for the security of the gas pipeline. They have brought more troops to this area to protect themselves,” Sai Hor Hseng explained, adding, “The military is putting foreign investment ahead of the local people, the civilians.” The recently mined area along the pipeline is also located in a conflict zone where multiple armed groups are active, Sai Hor Hseng explained. Among them are forces belonging to the Northern Alliance of ethnic armed organisations—a coalition which includes the Arakan Army, Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army—as well as the Restoration Council of Shan State, and the Myanmar army. During a recent episode of fighting near Nawng Arng, an artillery shell landed some 20m from the pipeline, Sai Hor Hseng said, adding that it is not confirmed which groups had clashed at that time, or who fired the shell in question. Myanmar Now previously reported that the military had also laid so-called “security landmines” at telecommunications towers leased to multiple providers. The move followed attacks by anti-junta People’s Defence Forces using makeshift explosive devices to topple towers used by military-owned provider Mytel. A spokesperson for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines has condemned the ongoing use of landmines in Myanmar, saying there was “no justifiable use of this weapon.”..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2022-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Revenues from the oil and gas industry are the largest source of vital foreign exchange available to the military; they were forecasted to be USD 1.5 billion in 2021-2022. Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise collects these payments. The military has taken possession over MOGE and its bank accounts, meaning that the military will take control over the USD 1.5 billion. This money will be used to purchase weapons that can be used to continue their brutal operations against the people of Myanmar. For this reason, civil society and the National Unity Government have called for sanctions on MOGE so that oil and gas companies put payments into a protected account. They have not asked for natural gas production to stop. However, companies such as Total have stated that if they stop paying MOGE, they will be forced to stop gas production, which will have humanitarian impacts..."
Source/publisher: Blood Money Campaign
2021-12-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Executive summary: Since the Burma Army attempted its military coup on February 1, the Burma government systems have virtually imploded and civil war is raging at unprecedented levels throughout the country. Violent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators have so far led to the killing of over 1,250 people and over 7,200 currently in prison for demanding their basic rights. The banking system has been crippled by paranoid military supervision, internet cuts and communication monitoring, all aimed at rooting out opposition. The Burma kyat has plummeted to an all-time low, and there is rampant inflation and shortage of goods. Meanwhile, the regime earns over US$ 1 billion annually from export of Burma’s natural gas resources from four offshore projects to China and Thailand, which are the single largest source of export revenues keeping the military in power. It also receives approximately US$ 500 million worth of domestic gas annually, which means the regime earns an estimated US$ 1.5 billion per year from these projects. Demonstrators, civil society and the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) have therefore called on governments to impose economic sanctions on the state-owned and military controlled Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The NUG has also urged companies to deposit all payments into a third-party escrow account, until an elected federal government is in place. In May, the French company Total, the operator of the Yadana offshore fields, responded by withholding the dividend to MOGE from its Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC), transporting gas from these fields. However, the dividend constitutes only 10% of the Yadana revenues paid to the regime, and only approximately 4% of Burma’s total gas export revenues. Meanwhile, Total and other companies currently exporting from offshore fields, including US Chevron, Thai PTTEP and Korean POSCO, are not only continuing to provide funds and legitimacy to the regime, but also expanding their projects. Planning is also underway to exploit recent discoveries of gas in three new areas off the Arakan Coast and south of Yangon which would further entrench the regime. 16 oil and gas companies from 13 countries currently have major shares in Burma’s oil and gas industry, and more are profiting through sub-contracts, such as Swiss-based Transocean and USMcDermott International. Only one company, Japan’s Mitsui Oil Exploration Company (MOECO), has divested from Burma’s offshore fields since the coup, withdrawing its investments from a planned new project in late October. By not heeding demands from the people of Burma, international oil and gas companies are increasingly becoming branded as military collaborators and placing their staff and operations at risk. A growing number of People’s Defence Forces are targeting the regime’s infrastructure and revenue-generating projects, particularly in the communications, electricity and energy sectors, including attacks on several gas pipeline projects. NUG has reported that PDFs conducted 950 attacks, including targeted explosions, between September 7 and October 6, of which 213 were against economic projects of the regime. One option for international oil and gas companies is to unilaterally suspend projects by declaring Force Majeure, for a period of up to two years, citing “insurrection”, “active hostilities or imminent threat of hostilities” or other reasons stated in their standard Production Sharing Contracts with the Burma government. International governments, particularly those which claim to promote democracy and human rights must place comprehensive economic sanctions on MOGE – consistent with sanctions already placed on other state-owned enterprises such as the Myanmar Timber Enterprise and Myanmar Gems Enterprise -- and ensure that no revenues or taxes are paid by their oil and gas companies to the regime. Oil and gas companies should immediately suspend all revenue and tax payments to the regime and put these into a third-party escrow account. Failing that, they must suspend or cancel their projects. All companies must also stop exploration and development activities aimed at exploiting additional or new gas discoveries. This report provides an update of Burma’s offshore natural gas industry, its impacts on the people of Burma and recommendations for the international community..."
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2021-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 2.78 MB
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Sub-title: Revenues from Foreign Companies Keep Military in Power
Description: " Payments by energy and extractive companies to entities under the control of the Myanmar military are providing key funds to sustain the junta and pose serious legal, financial, and reputational risks to investors in those companies. In October, Human Rights Watch wrote to several dozen investment firms that own shares in companies that operate in joint partnership with entities under the control of the junta installed by Myanmar’s military, which seized control in a February coup, engaged in a brutal crackdown against protestors, and is implicated in multiple crimes against humanity, killings, torture, and war crimes. Joint projects involving natural gas generate over a billion dollars in foreign revenue for the junta annually, transmitted in US dollars to the junta’s bank accounts in foreign countries. “Investors need to act now to help block massive payments currently flowing to a brutal military junta,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The junta is highly dependent on foreign US dollar income from mining and natural gas, and targeted new measures to block it may be the only real way to achieve changes in their behavior.” Under existing contracts with government entities, energy companies have limited options for halting payments that go to the junta, but they would need to comply with sanctions or other financial regulatory actions blocking those payments if imposed by the US, EU, and other key governments, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch wrote to investment firms with major investments in at least one of the following companies: Total Energies, Chevron, PTT or its subsidiary PTTEP, and POSCO, which together are responsible for the bulk of Myanmar’s natural gas production and revenues. Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard own substantial stakes in all four companies, giving them especially potent leverage with company leadership. Human Rights Watch also wrote to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon, Fisher Asset Management, and Dimensional Fund Advisors, as well as to several other funds of varying sizes with significant shares in Total Energies. Human Rights Watch has previously corresponded with Total Energies and PTT about their Myanmar operations. The letters to firms and investors detail how companies providing revenue to the junta are facing serious legal, financial, and reputational risks and are unable to fulfill their human rights responsibilities in Myanmar under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Investment firms also have human rights responsibilities and could themselves face financial and reputational risks as shareholders in companies generating billions of dollars for the junta. Human Rights Watch received no reply from Blackrock, Vanguard, or other US-based investors. State Street, which holds substantial blocks of shares in Total Energies, Chevron, and PTT and smaller stakes in POSCO, responded in an email on October 22 saying that the letter had been “passed on to our Asset Stewardship team who develop and implement our engagement strategies with portfolio companies in order that they can consider how this issue might be built into future engagements.” To address possible unintended negative consequences, the letters outline methods for blocking payments without disrupting natural gas production itself. Investors should move swiftly to raise concerns with companies, Human Rights Watch said. “Investment firms should be using their leverage as major shareholders to convince companies to support sanctions by the US, EU, and other concerned governments, freezing payments into the junta’s offshore accounts,” said Sifton. “Failing to act perpetuates harm to the people of Myanmar and only exposes companies to further risk.”..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch (USA)
2021-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "80% of the natural gas produced in Myanmar is exported (75% to Thailand and 25% to China as of 2016) [1]. Four large-scale offshore fields (Shwe, Yadana, Yetagun, and Zawtika) have played a significant role in earning foreign currency for the government. Among them, the Yetagun field has been closely connected to Japanese government and corporations since its development. Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar), a Japanese company, acquired working interests in the M13 and M14 blocks in 1991 and M12 block in 1992 [2]. The company developed the Yetagun field located in these blocks through exploration, assessment, and construction of production and shipping facilities including pipeline. The Yetagun field, which began production in 2000, also produces light liquid hydrocarbon (liquid natural gas similar in nature to oil) called condensate, a byproduct of natural gas. The shareholders of the field are Malaysia’s stateowned Petronas Carigali, the operator (40.9%); Myanma Oil Gas Enterprise (MOGE) (20.5%); Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) (19.3%) , and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) which is a subsidiary of state-owned PTT (19.3%)[3]. In Myanmar, a production sharing contract for offshore natural gas development [4] may allocate as much as 60% to 90% for the Myanmar government [5]. Further, there are numerous payments to be made to the government under such a contract, including a surface fee, signature bonus, production bonus, 12.5% royalty, 25% corporate tax, and 8% special goods tax [6]. Because MOGE is currently under control of the military that staged the coup d’état in February 2021, payments made now would benefit the military. All of the natural gas from the Yetagun field is sold to Thailand’s state-owned PTT and exported to Thailand, but it has been used for electricity projects implemented by and have generated profit for Japanese companies in Thailand. The gas is supplied to the Ratchaburi and Wangnoi power plants as fuel for generating electricity [7]. The Ratchaburi power plant is an independent power producer (IPP) in which JERA (a Japanese joint venture by Tokyo Electric Power Corporation and Chubu Electric Power Corporation) and Toyota Tsusho Corporation hold shares along with PTT and other corporations [8]. This plant was originally planned as Hin Krut Coal-fired Power Plant, but the plan was scrapped due to strong opposition by local residents. Under guidance from the Thai government, fuel was changed from coal to natural gas, and the controversial plant was finally built after the project site was also changed from Prachuap Khiri Khan to Ratchaburi [9]. Japanese entities have long been interested in natural gas development in Myanmar. The Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency, the predecessor organization to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), conducted a study on natural gas development in Myanmar in 1963 [10]. The study was commissioned by the government in Burma (Myanmar) at the time for the purpose of using the gas for fertilizer and cement production, but the records of detailed geographical surveys contained in the study suggest that Japan has long been involved in resource development in Myanmar. Nippon Oil Exploration (Myanmar) is jointly held by the Japanese government (50%), JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation (40%), and Mitsubishi Corporation (10%). Shares now held by the Japanese government were previously held by the Japan National Oil Corporation (JNOC), but after JNOC received much criticism for incurring huge losses and was reorganized into the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) took over the shares held by JNOC [11]. Between 2000 and 2011, profit from the sale of gas from the Yetagun field was an important source of income enabling the Myanmar military to exert control. Ordinary expenses by the Myanmar military increased threefold between 1995 and 2007 [12]. A significant increase is seen in 2001, and the trend continued after 2004. Given this, it can be assumed that the increase in expenses is due to the increase in income from export of natural gas including that from the Yetagun field. Petronas Caligari, the operator of the Yetagun project, declared force majeure on the Yetagun field and ceased production in April 2021 due to the production rate dropping below the technical threshold [13]. METI has indicated that production resumed on July 21, but that it was suspended again due to multiple workers having contracted Covid-19. Production was still suspended as of August 31 [14]. Gas production at the Yetagun field had been estimated to be near depletion even before the recent cease in production [15]. Even so, in the past, gas from the Yetagun field was an important source of income for the Myanmar military regime. It is unclear whether royalties, tax and other payments have been made to Myanmar after the coup or whether such payments, if they had been suspended due to the production cease, will resume in the future..."
Source/publisher: Mekong Watch
2021-09-15
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Since seizing power in February 2021, the Myanmar military has faced widespread allegations of human rights violations. Companies operating in Myanmar must make challenging decisions about how to responsibly navigate the crisis. International oil companies, including energy majors Total and Chevron, are under particular scrutiny as the military regime continues to sustain itself with revenues from the offshore gas industry. The contracts in force are complex, as are the payment structures. While Total and Chevron have suspended some gas dividend payments, these are a fraction of what is reaching the military regime. 90% of the money >continues to flow. Using publicly-available information, this Publish What You Pay policy brief summarises how revenues are flowing from international oil and gas companies through the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), and on to the military. Since the attempted coup, these revenues are more likely than ever to be a direct source of finance for the Myanmar military. The following highlights these key findings: MOGE has entered into four joint ventures as a representative of the Government of Myanmar for four offshore gas projects, including the Yadana Project operated by Total. Following the attempted coup d’etat, the military has control over all government bank accounts, including MOGE’s accounts. In 2017-2018, the amount that MOGE collected from projects under the responsibility of Total amounted to almost USD 400 million. About 50 percent of Myanmar’s foreign exchange now comes from gas revenues, indicating a high likelihood that the military is relying on them. The brief encourages oil and gas companies to pay revenue owed to MOGE into a trust or protected account until a legitimate and democratically-elected government is in place in Myanmar. Total’s response to this report This report focuses on payments made to MOGE as a result of the Yadana Project operated by Total. Total has said publicly that it does not make payments to MOGE and that this is done by PTT. This briefing uses publicly available information to explain the complex contracts and payment structures at play, and what Total’s role is. We shared this briefing with Total prior to publication and it provided this statement. We invited Total to disclose further supporting documents publicly to clarify its position but it did not..."
Source/publisher: Publish What You Pay (London)
2021-06-09
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 172.46 KB
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Sub-title: The winning cartoon in a competition organised by a French campaign group shows blood dripping from a Total oil container and forming the shape of Myanmar
Description: "UK-based cartoonist Carol Isaacs, also known as The Surreal McCoy, has won the #TotalCartoonChallenge, a competition organised by French campaign group Info Birmanie to protest oil company TotalEnergies’ business with the Myanmar military junta. Carol’s winning cartoon shows blood dripping from a Total oil container and forming the shape of Myanmar. Carol has deep ties to Myanmar, as her family fled the country as refugees during the Second World War. She has visited several times and is currently working on a graphic novel on her family’s history. Info Birmanie launched the #TotalCartoonChallenge on social media 10 days before TotalEnergies’ May 28 annual shareholder meeting. The challenge aimed to increase TotalEnergies’ reputational risk because of their continued business with the military junta. The winning prize is publication in Myanmar Now. “We know the challenge is symbolic and does not carry much weight by itself, but we hope that the sum of actions, such as the letter co-signed by more than 40 elected members of parliament in France, will generate enough momentum and visibility to force Total to stop financing the junta,” Info Birmanie assistant coordinator Arjuna Lebaindre told Myanmar Now. The cartoon challenge is part of a series of creative actions to oppose the Myanmar coup. The Raise Three Fingers campaign, which Carol is part of, is a Myanmar initiative that calls on artists to create a three-fingered salute, the symbol of pro-democracy movements in Myanmar, Thailand and Hong Kong. Info Birmanie is continuing its campaign against TotalEnergies’ business with the junta. They are now running an online petition calling for TotalEnergies to “block any payment to the military junta until the country is ruled by the democratically elected civilian government,” receiving almost 3,800 signatures since its launch..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-06-05
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Pressure is growing on foreign governments as elected parliamentarians and campaign groups push for sanctions on Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and state banks, which are now under junta control. On Tuesday, 40 French parliamentarians called on their government to advocate for EU sanctions against MOGE, describing it as a “significant financial windfall for the junta”. The parliamentarians also demanded official recognition for the National Unity Government and Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. In April, six US senators wrote to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urging for sanctions on MOGE. “History shows that when the junta was previously in place in the 1990s, gas revenues from Total and Chevron/Unocal helped them to withstand international sanctions as their reserves dwindled. This time, we believe that the Tatmadaw must be entirely prevented from accessing a steady stream of international resources,” the senators wrote. In the same month, the Washington Post published an editorial advocating for action on oil and gas revenue flows to the junta. “The Biden administration can break this impasse by enacting sanctions on MOGE. These could be tailored to allow Total and Chevron to continue gas production — provided they do not transfer profits. Alternatively, the Treasury department could sanction the bank accounts in Thailand and Singapore that MOGE uses to collect royalties,” the paper proposed. Civil society pressure Campaign groups have stepped up efforts in recent weeks. On May 25, Daniel Eriksson, CEO of global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International sent a letter to European Commission Vice-President Josep Borrell Fontelles calling for EU action on oil and gas revenue flowing to Myanmar’s military junta. “The junta will likely use [oil and gas] revenues to sustain its control of the government apparatus, finance atrocities against the local population, purchase arms and seize portions for private gain,” Daniel wrote. The letter called for EU sanctions on MOGE, Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank, the intermediary banks that collect oil and gas revenue. Campaigners intensified calls for sanctions in response to an announcement by TotalEnergies and Chevron to suspend dividend payments from the Yadana pipeline project, costing the junta tens of millions of dollars. On Friday, 408 civil society organisations issued a statement demanding that TotalEnergies and Chevron “support targeted sanctions rather than lobbying for exemptions as you have in the past.” TotalEnergies Chairperson Patrick Pouyanné told its shareholder meeting last week that the company would comply with any further sanctions. Human Rights Watch responded to TotalEnergies and Chevron announcement, stating that a suspension of pipeline profits is not enough without targeted sanctions. “Chevron and Total’s recent decision is a step in the right direction, but it affects less than 5 percent of the natural gas revenue the Myanmar junta receives,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. “To have real impact, governments and companies need to go further to stop the junta from receiving funds or accessing bank accounts that receive payments.” Human Rights Watch has also drawn attention to the role played by Thai oil company PTT and called ongovernments that have sanctioned military conglomerates to push Japan, Singapore and Thailand to adopt similar measures. Global Witness called for targeted sanctions and for oil and gas funds to be kept in a protected account, echoing an earlier demand from the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. “In order to capture the remainder of these revenues the international community must place targeted economic sanctions on the military’s economic interests in the oil and gas industry. This will ensure that all payments related to the sale of Myanmar’s natural gas are held for the benefit of a future, legitimate government rather than funding the military regime,” said Keel Dietz of Global Witness. Myanmar was forecast to earn 2,305 billion kyat (about US$1.4 billion) from oil and gas in the year to March 2022, according to a Myanmar budget document drawn up before the coup. The sector is expected to contribute just over 10% of total government revenues this year..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-06-05
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Energy boss says revenue goes to the state – not the generals
Description: "Energy giant, Total was forced to justify its response to the Myanmar coup to shareholders yesterday amid growing pressure from international campaigners to halt payments to the military regime. Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting, Total’s chairman and chief executive Patrick Pouyanné said the company “condemned violence and the human rights violations that have taken place in Burma”. Pouyanné said he was outraged by the coup. He argued the “only way to stop the flow of cash going to the state of Burma is to stop production”. “But as a company we have to abide by the law,” he concluded. Total shareholders heard Pouyanné say the company was obliged to maintain production from its Yadana gas fields to honour contracts signed with PTT, its partner in Thailand which buys much of the gas produced there. “If we decide to stop paying taxes we are not abiding by the law,” he said. “It is a criminal risk and I cannot expose the collaborators of Total in Burma to jail sentences. In this country there is also forced labour in force. So I cannot expose them to this risk.” But the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and opposition campaigners have called for Total not to suspend gas production, but to put the regime’s share of gas revenues into a protected account until democracy is restored, so that the regime does not have access to the money. Offshore Two days before the AGM, Total and its co-investor Chevron announced that the immensely profitable pipeline which carries Yadana’s gas to Thailand would “suspend” dividend payments to its shareholders. “We listen to the stakeholders. And we have taken the call to limit the income going to the military junta. We have tried everything to reduce this,” the French oil boss told shareholders. The state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) is likely to lose about US$40 million a year in dividends as a result. This is because MOGE owns 15 per cent of the company which owns the pipeline, the Bermuda-based Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC). But campaign group, EarthRights International estimates that the suspension of Yadana pipeline dividends amounts to less than 10% of state revenue generated from Total’s Yadana gas project and described the move as “a small step in the right direction.” “A more comprehensive action would be a complete shut-down of revenue-sharing with MOGE - its accounts are controlled by the regime,” EarthRights International wrote in a response on Twitter. Pouyanné rejected suggestions that Total was paying money “offshore” to the military junta, despite the company locating MGTC in Bermuda. He said that Myanmar receives most of its share of gas revenue from Yadana via banks in Thailand. Taxes Total also told investors it stopped developing new potential projects in Myanmar, but the Total boss rejected calls to stop paying taxes to Myanmar while the junta is in charge of the country. “When we pay taxes we don’t pay this to the army. We pay it to a state. We’ve been paying these taxes to the state for 20 years and we continue to do so. And we did so when Madam Aung San Suu Kyi was at the head of Burma.” Pouyanné said it was not accurate for media reports to suggest that by partnering with MOGE it means it is paying Myanmar’s generals. “When you read these newspapers, it sounds like the income is falling right into the pockets of these generals. It is not the case. The state obtains the income. (MOGE) was still in place when democracy was back in Burma.” But campaigners have pointed out that MOGE – like all government agencies in Myanmar – is now under the control of the junta and has to obey its orders. Total, now renamed TotalEnergies, would comply with any sanctions imposed by the United States or European Union, Pouyanné confirmed. Sophie Brondel, coordinator of France-based campaign group Info Birmanie, told Myanmar Now: “Total continues to fund a junta labelled as a murderous criminal enterprise by a UN expert. This has to stop.”..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2021-05-29
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Energy giant TotalEnergies(TOTF.PA) said on Friday it had gone as far as it could for now to limit the revenues going to the military junta in Myanmar while staying within a legal framework and assuring power supplies. Total and U.S. energy company Chevron (CVX.N) earlier this week said they were suspending some payments from a gas joint venture that would have reached the junta, earning praise from pro-democracy activists for taking an important first step. International companies doing business in the country have come under pressure from rights groups and Myanmar's parallel civilian government to review their operations to stop payments flowing to a military government that seized power on Feb. 1. TotalEnergies Chairman and Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne told a shareholder meeting on Friday that the only way to fully stop all revenues flowing to the junta would be to halt production in the Yadana gas fields, which supply power plants in Thailand and Myanmar's domestic market. The company has rejected this option for now, saying it would expose workers and the group to legal threats and penalise the region in terms of energy access. "First of all, the bulk of revenues come from the fact there's a client that buys that production, which is Thai company PTTEP ... and then there are the taxes," Pouyanne said. "Deciding to not pay taxes would mean we would be in breach of the law, there's a criminal risk attached.".....SANCTIONS: Total would comply with any further sanctions imposed on Myanmar, including by the United States and the European Union, Pouyanne added. Earlier this week shareholders in the Moattama Gas Transportation Company (MGTC) - led by Total and Chevron and which also includes Thailand's PTTEP and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) - voted to suspend all cash distributions. That move will curtail revenues going to MOGE. But MOGE, which is a state energy firm, is also an operator of the Yadana gas field, meaning it receives revenues from there. Pouyanne said no revenues flowing to Myanmar state coffers went through offshore accounts, even though MGTC, the gas transportation company, is domiciled in Bermuda. He said MOGE received its payments from Thai group PTTEP through bank accounts set up by the Myanmar state in Thailand, and that payments to MGTC were also made via Thai bank accounts. A spokesman for Myanmar's military junta did not answer phone calls seeking comment on the issue. MGTC paid its taxes in Myanmar, Pouyanne added..."
Source/publisher: Total SE ( Paris)
2021-05-28
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Total and Chevron halt some payments to military in wake of coup but advocacy groups say more needs to be done
Description: "Advocacy groups have called on French fossil fuel giant Total and US company Chevron to further cut ties with Myanmar’s military, after announcing they would suspend dividend payments to the junta from a large gas project in the wake of February’s coup. “Total condemns the violence and human rights abuses occurring in Myanmar and reaffirms that it will comply with any decision that may be taken by the relevant international and national authorities, including applicable sanctions issued by the EU or the US authorities,” the company said in a statement. But advocacy groups said 90% of the money the junta makes from the Yadana gasfield joint venture with Total and Chevron – as well as the gas itself – continues to flow. Since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, more than 5,400 people have been arrested, according to monitoring group AAPP Burma, with the majority still in detention, often in unknown locations. At least 824 people have been killed by the junta, including dozens of children, sparking global outcry and calls for international companies to cut their business ties with the military. Total told a shareholder meeting this month that Moattama Gas Transportation Company Limited (MGTC) – a joint venture that pipes gas from the Yadana field in the Andaman sea to Myanmar – had decided to stop making dividend payments to the junta. The resolution was put forward by Total, which owns 31.24% of MGTC, and Chevron, which owns 28.26% of MGTC – shareholdings that give the two multinationals a controlling stake. The rest of MGTC is owned by PTTEP, which is controlled by the Thai state (25.5%) and Myanmar government company Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (15%). However, advocacy group Justice for Myanmar pointed out oil was still flowing through the pipeline and the vast majority of payments to the junta have not been affected. The junta, which seized power on 1 February, still earns the state’s share of gas revenue, royalties and cost recovery from the Yadana gas field operation and corporate income tax from the MGTC. MGTC’s suspension of dividends accounts for a tiny proportion of the estimated US$1.5bn Myanmar earns annual from offshore oil and gas projects. Spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar Yadanar Maung said the decision to suspend dividend payments would curb one source of revenue for the illegitimate military government in Myanmar. “Total and Chevron have made enormous profits in Myanmar in the past while simultaneously bolstering brutal military regimes … [they] have made the right choice by finally acknowledging that MOGE [Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise] is under the control of the military and finances the junta’s crimes.” Anti-corruption group Publish What You Pay Australia said Total and Chevron’s decision to stop dividends was “a positive first step in supporting the people of Myanmar and will begin to limit the murderous Myanmar military regime’s access to vital foreign currency”. “We urge them to stop the other 90% of payments flowing to the military from the pipeline,” the group’s director, Clancy Moore, said. He said that in the 2017-18 financial year, MGTC paid $141m to MOGE in taxes and dividends, made up of $41m in dividends and $100m in taxes. “Total and Chevron must stop financing the military generals who have blood on their hands and put payments into escrow accounts,” he said. Chevron said it was aware of calls to shut off the gas and put all payments due to MOGE into an escrow account instead of paying the regime. “Any actions should be carefully considered to ensure the people of Myanmar are not further disadvantaged by unintended and unpredictable consequences of well-intentioned decisions,” it said in a statement. “Gas produced by the Yadana project is used to supply electricity for approximately half the population of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and also for people in Thailand. “Effectively turning off the power to half of Yangon’s homes, schools and hospitals – in the middle of a state of emergency and a pandemic – risks creating even more hardship.” In its statement, Total did not address the other payments made to the junta. “Total continues to act as a responsible operator of the Yadana field, maintaining the production of gas in accordance with applicable laws, so as not to disrupt the electricity supply that is vital to the local populations of Myanmar and Thailand,” it said..."
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Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
2021-05-27
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "PetroChina International Singapore Pte Ltd sold a cargo of jet fuel into Myanmar in April, according to government import data reviewed by Reuters, the first such shipment since before the military seized power in a coup in February. Industry sources say suppliers have been particularly wary of selling jet fuel because it could be used in planes to bomb ethnic armed groups that have been supporting anti-junta protesters, as well as in civilian airliners. The shipment could raise new questions over China's role in Myanmar at a time when it has been accused by the junta's opponents of backing coup leader Min Aung Hlaing - an accusation rejected by Beijing. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PetroChina, a listed company controlled by state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPET.UL), did not respond to requests for comment about the fuel shipment. The import data, which hasn't been published, shows PetroChina International shipped 13,300 tonnes of jet fuel and 4,000 tonnes of gasoline onboard tanker MT Yu Dong for discharge at Myanmar's Thilawa terminal on April 15. Western nations including the United States and Britain have condemned the junta for killing hundreds of civilians and have applied limited sanctions, but there are currently no international measures outlawing oil product shipments. And while the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which Myanmar belongs, has called for an end to violence and dialogue among the parties, it stopped well short of calling for sanctions in an April statement. China has not been so forceful in condemning the junta and has simply said it wants to see stability in its neighbour, drawing accusations from some of the junta's opponents that it is supporting the military authorities. "Given Beijing's desire to boost its influence in Naypyidaw, it seems unlikely that any Chinese state firm would be too concerned by the threat of backlash from the international community over doing business with Myanmar's government," said Henrick Tsjeng, an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. Activist group Justice for Myanmar condemned the fuel sale. "We're appalled that PetroChina is exporting jet fuel to Myanmar, doing business with the war criminals who are conducting indiscriminate air strikes against ethnic communities," said spokeswoman Yadanar Maung. Data from Singapore trade agency Enterprise Singapore confirmed a mid-April shipment of aviation turbine fuel into Myanmar. The fuel can be used by both commercial and military planes, possibly needing to be blended depending on the grade. Reuters saw no evidence that the fuel was destined for military jets. The junta spokesman did not respond to calls requesting comment. Military jets have carried out frequent bombing raids against ethnic armies opposed to the junta in northern and eastern Myanmar as fighting has surged since the Feb. 1 coup that toppled elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One of the forces that has been bombed, the Kachin Independence Army, told Reuters it had attacked seven oil trucks it suspected of bringing aviation fuel in by road from China this week. It did not comment on the PetroChina shipment. The Myanmar data showed PetroChina International sold the jet fuel to National Energy Puma Aviation Services Co Ltd (NEPAS), a joint venture between Puma Energy and Myanma Petroleum Enterprise (MPE). The gasoline went to three other local fuel importers. Puma Energy told Reuters NEPAS arranged for delivery of a cargo at the Thilawa terminal on April 15, but declined to comment on the type of fuel being offloaded. Puma Energy, a fuel storage and retail firm majority-owned by global commodities trader Trafigura, said it had suspended operations in Myanmar on Feb. 10 to ensure employee safety. Since then, operations of the NEPAS joint venture are being carried out by majority shareholder MPE, Puma Energy's spokesman said. MPE, owned by the Ministry of Electrical and Energy (MOEE) which is now under junta control, did not respond to a request for comment. In addition to the jet fuel, 79,500 tonnes of gasoline and 110,700 tonnes of diesel were shipped to Myanmar last month from Asia's oil trading hub, Enterprise Singapore's data showed. Myanmar last imported about 13,800 tonnes of jet fuel in February, according to government data. Monthly imports in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, were about 14,500 tonnes. PetroChina International Singapore is the Singapore-based trading unit of PetroChina Co Ltd (601857.SS), ..."
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Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2021-05-20
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar is planning to build new high-quality oil refineries so as to reduce reliance on the oversea market and to fulfill the local demands for oil products, an official from the Ministry of Electricity and Energy said on Monday. "Medium oil refineries will be built in Myanmar's central region through China-Myanmar crude oil pipeline and new Integrated Refinery and Petrochemical Complex will be constructed near Yangon region under joint venture (JV) and public-private partnership (PPP) system," said Tin Maung Oo, permanent secretary of the ministry, at a press briefing. Plans are underway to provide technical assistance and issue temporary licenses to the current operating mini oil refineries with daily production of 3,000 to 30,000 gallons of crude oil for the production of high-quality oil products, he said. The ministry has already issued operating licenses to 170 private businessmen and also allowed 521 oil refineries to operate so far, he added. Myanmar's crude oil production recorded 4.297 million barrels in FY 2016-17 and 3.168 million barrels have been produced so far in FY 2019-20 while natural gas production registered 7.67 trillion cubic feet in FY 2016-17 and 670 billion cubic feet have been manufactured so far in FY 2019-20..."
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Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
2020-06-08
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "The energy security concerns of Thailand, India and China greatly determine their relations with Myanmar. In principle, India and China have pledged to cooperate in the field of energy security in order to avoid costly rivalries. In practice, however, commentators expect that the two oilimporting giants will find it more or less impossible to avoid such rivalries. In relation to Myanmar, this seems difficult indeed. The immediate issue is competition between India and China over building a pipeline to transport natural gas from Shwe, a gas field off the coast of Myanmar’s Arakan state. In March 2007, it became clear that China will further consolidate its ties with Myanmar by building a gas pipeline from the Burmese coast to Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province. India’s pipeline plans, negotiated for several years, were finally rejected by the Burmese regime. A South Korean offer to construct a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Myanmar was also turned down. The Chinese plans include an oil pipeline as well, probably running parallel to the gas pipeline and intended to carry Persian Gulf crude oil shipped by tanker to a connecting Burmese port facility. This makes sense considering the oft-cited Chinese argument that an oil pipeline through Myanmar will enhance China’s energy security by serving as an alternative oil supply route bypassing the Strait of Malacca, a waterway of crucial importance for the provision of oil and other necessities to China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Strategic Analysis"
2007-07-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 133.07 KB (20 pages)
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Description: "Myanmar has a total of 2,681 petrol stations across the country and 1,754 of them are located in Mandalay, Bago, Sagaing, Ayeyawady, Yangon and Magway regions, according to the Ministry of Electricity and Energy. More than 290 petrol stations were allowed in 2019 bringing to 2,681 petrol stations across the country. There are 95 petrol stations in Nay Pyi Taw, 187 petrol stations in Yangon Region, 655 petrol stations in Mandalay Region, 213 petrol stations in Ayeyawady Region, 267 petrol stations in Bago Region, 193 petrol stations in Magway Region, 239 petrol stations in Sagaing Region, 30 petrol stations in Taninthayi Region, 120 petrol stations in Kachin State, 18 petrol stations in Kayah State, 52 petrol stations in Kayin State, 5 petrol stations in Chin State, 137 petrol stations in Mon State, 38 petrol stations in Rakhine State, 58 petrol stations in eastern Shan State, 195 petrol stations in northern Shan State and 179 petrol stations in southern Shan State. The fine for misappropriating the quality and measurement of fuel oil is increased up to Ks1 million per case, announced Myanmar Fuel Oil Exporters and Distributors Association on September 27, 2019..."
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Source/publisher: Eleven Media Group (Myanmar)
2020-02-10
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China imported 10.8 million tonnes of crude oil via the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline in 2019, up 6.3 percent year on year, according to the Kunming Customs in southwest China's Yunnan Province. The Kunming Customs said Tuesday that the import value amounted to 37.7 billion yuan (about 5.5 billion U.S. dollars), up 3.9 percent. Meanwhile, the imports of natural gas from Myanmar amounted to 3.4 million tonnes, up 54 percent from 2018, with a total value of 12.1 billion yuan, an annual increase of 74.1 percent. Crude oil started entering China via the 1,420-km China-Myanmar crude oil pipeline from June 2017, and the China-Myanmar natural gas pipeline was put into operation in July 2013. According to the Dehong oil and gas transmission branch of the China National Petroleum Corporation, China has imported about 26.9 million tonnes of crude oil and 24.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas through the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China) via "China.org.cn" (China)
2020-01-15
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A new cooperation deal between the Myanmar government and private energy company, MPRL E&P, will bring good news for Thailand's power generation sector, Myanmar's Ministry of Electricity and Energy said in a statement on Monday. The statement was issued after MPRL E&P, a Myanmar-based independent energy company, successfully concluded negotiations with Yangon on two key agreements on fiscal terms and the sharing of output from the A-6 offshore gas bloc in Myanmar. MPRL E&P is the only independent energy exploration company in Myanmar which actively explores both onshore and offshore wells in the country. In the statement, MPRL E&P said the talks resulted in a number of improvements in negotiating terms, which will be crucial to the economic viability of the gas exploration project, which is located in deep waters off the Myanmar coast..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
2019-12-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Total/Woodside Energy’s block A-6 project in the Rakhine basin offshore Myanmar will be the country’s first ultra-deepwater development.
Description: "Total/Woodside Energy’s block A-6 project in the Rakhine basin offshore Myanmar will be the country’s first ultra-deepwater development. The block covers an area close to 10,000 sq km (3,861 sq mi) in water depths of up to 2,300 m (7,546 ft). Woodside has a 40% interest in the joint venture and is the technical joint operator for exploration and appraisal operations. MPRL E&P with 20% is also a joint operator. Total, which has a 40% interest, will assume operatorship during the development phase. According to Woodside, the partners aim to start front-end engineering design during the second half of this year. Since 2018 when the Shwe Yee Htun-2 discovery well delivered 40 m (131 ft) of net gas pay, five more wells have been drilled, all encountering gas. Woodside estimates the combined resource at 67 MMboe..."
Source/publisher: "Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine"
2020-01-09
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Government will open 33 new blocks for foreign bidding but investors are wary of regulatory risks
Description: "Myanmar’s government is expected to announce major new bidding for natural gas exploration, including 15 offshore and 18 onshore blocks, in a bid to give the sluggish but potentially lucrative industry a much-needed capital infusion. But while a new exploration agreement signed last month between Myanmar’s MPRL E&P Company, France’s Total and Australia’s Woodside Energy have given the sector a huge boost, investors are still wary about the industry’s policy direction. Block A6, an Ayeyarwady Region joint venture in which Total holds 40%, Woodside 40% and MPRL E&P Co 20%, will be Myanmar’s first ultra-deepwater natural gas field project. It is also the only new gas development to be started under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s nearly four-year-old administration.The field is estimated to contain 2-3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, with a projected daily output of 400 million standard cubic feet. That represents more than a fifth of Myanmar’s existing daily output..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) an international watchdog on the oil, gas and mining industry recently has called on Myanmar to improve public disclosure on gemstone production and state-owned enterprises, the News Straits Times reported. It also asked the government to clarify the status of military-affiliated extractive companies and their activities in the country. The EITI board announced that Myanmar has achieved meaningful progress towards implementing impactful standards. However, the statement emphasised the need for Myanmar to further improve public disclosure around license allocation, gemstone production data and state-owned enterprises..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2019-10-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "In 2015, Burma (also known as Myanmar) produced a variety of mineral commodities, including antimony, cement, coal, copper, lead, manganese, natural gas, nickel, petroleum, petroleum products, precious and semiprecious stones, tin, tungsten, and zinc. On July 30, Cyclone Komen brought heavy rains that caused widespread flooding and landslides across 12 out of 14 States and regions in the country. Chin and Rakhine States and the Magway and Sagaing regions were declared natural disaster areas. Basic infrastructure around the country, such as roads and bridges, was severely damaged or destroyed, which impeded traffic within and among the affected areas. In the aftermath, the performance of the mineral industry was affected as many mineral facilities were located in the areas (tables 1, 2; ReliefWeb.com, 2016). According to data published by the Central Statistical Organization, since the opening of Burma’s economy in 2011, many sectors of the country’s economy had seen a surge in foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI in fiscal year 2015 (April 1, 2014, to March 30, 2015) amounted to $8 billion invested in a total of 211 projects. In fiscal year 2016, FDI amounted to $9.5 billion invested in a total of 213 projects, including $4.8 billion invested in 13 projects in the oil and gas sector and $28.9 million invested in 1 project in the mining sector. Investors in fiscal year 2016 included those from Singapore (55 projects), China (43), Japan (25), Hong Kong (23), and India (5), among others. Burma’s leading investor was Singapore, which invested about $4.2 billion, followed by China ($3.3 billion), Hong Kong ($231 million), India ($224 million), and Japan ($220 million) (Central Statistical Organization, 2016). In recent years, many legal instruments had been introduced in Burma’s legal and regulatory framework, mainly to encourage the participation of foreign and local investors in the country’s economy. In June 2015, a new draft of the Myanmar Company Law was published to replace the Myanmar Companies Act of 1914. The new company law was drafted by the Department of Investment and Company Administration of the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank. The new law is intended to update the previous version of the law by incorporating consistent international best practices (Greenlee, 2015). Other legal instruments include the Foreign Investment Law of 2012, the Foreign Investment Rules of 2013, and Notification No. 49/2014 (New Notification) of August 2014, which were issued by the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC). According to the Myanmar Ministry of Mines, the set of laws and notifications related to FDI were created to attract interest from investors and include such provisions as tax exemptions, tax holidays, and income tax relief, granting full venture ownership to foreign investors, and a Government promise not to nationalize businesses while the contract is in place...".
Creator/author: Yolanda Fong-Sam
Source/publisher: United States Geological Survey (USGS)
2018-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Mining, Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: "... In debates about economic globalisation, the case for leading corporations to engage with some of the world?s most desperate development challenges is increasingly heard. In just the last few years, the World Bank and Mandle have shown that economic globalisation can operate to the benefit of the poor, Bhagwati and Wolf have issued powerful defences of globalisation, and Friedman has urged individuals, corporations and governments to seize the opportunities present in the increasingly "flat" world in which we live.2 From the peak of the international political system, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has endorsed all these arguments by holding that it is "the absence of broad-based business activity, not its presence, that condemns much of humanity to suffering."3 To stimulate action, he sponsored the UN Global Compact, dedicated to promoting responsible corporate citizenship throughout the world, and appointed its principal author, Kennedy School Professor John Ruggie, to the position of Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. However, despite all the mood music lauding the contribution business can make to development, it remains an open question whether corporate engagement, and in particular inward investment, should take place in extreme contexts. On the one hand, foreign capitalist involvement in some industries, notably resource extraction, has long been seen as highly exploitative. For decades, neo-Marxist critiques of capitalist underdevelopment held sway, stressing the extent of local state dependence on foreign capitalist interests, and the catastrophic impact of corporate engagement on local economic, social and political evolution.4 Notions of captured, rentier states mired in corruption and committed to systematic exploitation of Third World populations were commonly encountered. Few other than baleful local effects, generated by unprincipled involvement on the part of foreign corporations, were recorded. Today, criticism of this kind continues to be heard in, for example, responses to the World Bank?s Extractive Industries Review, released in December 2003, which itself reached rather equivocal conclusions.5 Under the influence of more recent analyses of economic globalisation and its effects, should such activity now be encouraged? As economies are opened to the forces of global capitalism, is resource extraction to be placed alongside other corporate activity as positive and constructive in its contribution to pro-poor policies? On the other hand, all forms of corporate engagement with regimes that commit gross human rights violations are widely viewed as thoroughly unprincipled. For many years now, the sanctions lobby has trained a moral spotlight on inward investment in countries dominated by violator regimes. While the condemnation, and the resultant corporate pullouts, have always been highly selective, picking up on, say, Myanmar in the Asian context but making little comment on China, they have been no less powerful for that. Indeed, informal sanctions, targeting brands and corporations with a great deal to lose from negative publicity, have often been much more potent than formal government sanctions applied by the US and some of its allies.6 Again, under the influence of the latest writings on economic globalisation, should this activity also now be endorsed? Even in the most unpromising domains, can profits and principles be secured in tandem?7 This article tackles these issues by focusing on one very specific development context: Myanmar, or the country formerly known as Burma. By almost any definition, this is a difficult environment for poverty reduction.8 It is also one of the most unpromising settings for business activity, ranking last out of the 127 countries included in the Fraser Institute?s Economic Freedom of the World Index for 2003.9 Furthermore, the kinds of extreme circumstance that generate the greatest development challenges are readily found here. Global corporations are engaged in extractive activities that provoke fierce critiques. Reports published over many years by Amnesty International, EarthRights International, Human Rights Watch and other organisations document gross human rights abuse by government-backed forces in virtually all parts of a country of more than 50 million people. Within this context, the article examines one particularly controversial extractive enterprise: the Yadana gas project, in which Western oil companies have long been prime movers. The debate that encircles this project is of course not unique. It is nestled in a broader discourse about corporate engagement with rights violating regimes all over the world, and reflected in specific ethical controversies thathave flared up in recentyears.11 When companies such as Carlsberg, Heineken, Levi Strauss and Reebok pulled out of Myanmar in the early and mid-1990s, they made public the moral concerns that prompted their decisions.12 Equally, some corporations targeted by campaigners have issued ethical justifications for ongoing engagement.13 Similar divisions are visible in other spheres. While the Global Fund made a high-profile withdrawal from Myanmar in August 2005, citing intolerable official interference in its work to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, key internal groups such as the National League for Democracy and the Student Generations Since 1988 now call for humanitarian intervention; and international agencies such as Save the Children USA continue to operate inside the country.14 The Yadana project is special because this single case encapsulates Western corporate involvement in resource extraction in a highly repressive context. It also has the virtue of being very well documented. The article addresses two main questions. First, is the involvement of foreignowned corporations in Myanmar?s Yadana project to be welcomed? Second, with the experience gained from this involvement, can wider lessons about global corporate citizenship be drawn? To generate answers, the first section of the article provides some brief background material on the Yadana project. The second section then examines the cases made by its backers and critics, and evaluates the project from the perspective of its impact on the people of Myanmar. The third section focuses on wider lessons for corporate engagement that flow from the project, and in particular, the conditions in which inward investment in repressive settings is likely to be most constructive and positive in its effects. Applying these conditions to Myanmar, the fourth section considers ways forward for corporate involvement with the country. The article closes with a brief conclusion. The argument is that it is not possible to reach an overall evaluation of the Yadana project. However, some principles of responsible cross-border corporate engagement can be derived from it..."
Creator/author: Ian Holliday
Source/publisher: City University of Hong Kong
2008-01-02
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.62 MB
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Description: "... This survey examines the state of disclosure of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Initial Environmental Examinations (IEE) conducted by oil and gas companies in Myanmar who were awarded blocks after 2013. The survey reveals that 11 out of 19 offshore blocks (58%) have disclosed IEEs and 4 out of 15 onshore blocks (26%) have disclosed EIAs. It identifies the companies who have disclosed, and those who have not. It provides links to the IEE/EIA reports, and associated Environmental Management Plans (EMPs). The Executive Summaries of most disclosed IEE/EIA are available in Burmese as well as English, in line with the emerging guidance from MOECAF. The overall level of disclosure in the oil and gas sector is superior to other sectors in Myanmar where the IEE/EIA process has yet to be consistently applied, such as mining and construction. However some oil and gas companies have not disclosed their IEE or EIA reports. These are predominantly those with onshore blocks, who are mostly smaller companies and with fewer public commitments to operating to global standards than the offshore operators. They signed contracts 6-12 months earlier and may have undertaken their EIA/IEE in 2014. The survey does not attempt to comment on the quality of these IEE/EIA. However a quick review and anecdotal evidence suggests that the IEE/EIA reports disclosed by international oil/gas companies, who have used experienced international EIA consultancy firms partnering with Myanmar EIA consultancies, are generally of a higher quality ? and cost - than those seen by MCRB for projects in other sectors in Myanmar. It is hoped that their example will lead to a raising of standards for EIA and disclosure across all sectors. The survey also analyses the challenges faced by companies in complying with the new requirement for IEE/EIA and disclosure, and makes recommendations for how these can be addressed. The issue of pre-existing projects is highlighted, which, under Article 8 of the new EIA Procedures, need to take steps to obtain an Environmental Compliance Certificate. The rationale for undertaking this research assumes that website disclosure, in addition to being a legal requirement under the new EIA procedures, will allow stakeholders to access and read the reports. These stakeholders ? who may include national and regional government officials and parliamentarians, civil society organisations, local communities and the media ? will therefore have the opportunity to study the assessments and engage critically with companies over the contractual commitments included in them, and hold companies to account for their environmental and social performance. However this requires those stakeholders to ?do their homework? and read the IEE/EIA. This survey is therefore also intended to raise awareness of the availability of these assessments; encourage stakeholders to read and engage with the EIA process; and encourage development partners to build their capacity to do so..."
Creator/author: Inna Lazareva, Vicky Bowman
Source/publisher: Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB)
2016-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 710.4 KB
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Description: Summary: "In 2008, Myanmar?s military rulers ratified a new constitution that ensured their continued monopoly of the country?s natural resources. Section 37 (a) states: ?the Union is the ultimate owner ofall lands and all natural resources above and below the ground, above and beneath the water and in the atmosphere” Under this constitution, the central government in Naypyidaw is not only the owner of all natural resources in the country; it also controls and manages them, enacting ?necessary laws for extraction.” This centralized control has had disastrous effects in widening inequality, fueling a cycle of conflict and violence, and depleting non-renewable resources that could be the basis of a sound economy for future generations. Arakan State provides a perfect illustration of this and lies at the heart of one of Myanmar?s most sought after resources: natural gas. The Shwe project now produces 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, yet none of this is used to provide electricity in Arakan State. While local communities bear livelihood and environmental destruction, human rights abuses and land confiscation, the gas is sold to China and more than one billion USD annually flows to Naypyidaw. There, accounting of the revenues remains opaque and reinvestment in Arakan?s infrastructure, education, and health is practically non-existent. The state is the second poorest in the country Until now, the military, the central government, and foreign investors have taken advantage of the centralized governance structure and a lack of protection mechanisms to make all the decisions around natural resources and reap most of the benefits. In contrast, devolving the powers to manage resources to lower levels of government will establish political, administrative, and fiscal structures so that decisions around the use of natural resources can be made at local levels with input from affected peoples. This distribution of powers makes natural resource management more accountable to the needs of local communities and will therefore ensure a more sustainable development. Drawing on the Arakan Oil Watch?s decade-long work with communities affected by natural resource investments and experiences from resource-rich countries around the world, we find six critical components to achieve sustainable natural resource management in Myanmar. They are: 1. Build peace: A moratorium on high-value natural resource extraction until political agreements and new legislation have been finalized will reduce tensions and conflict and allow time for protection laws and institutions to be established. Peace 4 agreements that specify division of powers—such as the one in Papua New Guinea—will help prevent conflicts from re- emerging and enable subnational governments to proceed with establishing their own governance structures. 2. Broaden participation: Engaging people in the process of managing their own resources and ensuring that they receive benefits from their resources will prevent resentment and reduce conflicts. Strengthening formal participation, as is done in Latin America with community referendums, will provide immediate input from affected communities and community- based organizations on natural resource projects as well as on long-term planning decisions. 3. Decentralize governance: Transferring significant powers of authority from Naypyidaw to civilian-led state and regional governments through statutory and constitutional provisions will bring decision-making closer to affected people and make development processes more efficient and equitable. 4. Decentralize ownership of natural resources: Amending Section 37 (a) of the national constitution to enable states and regions to own their natural resources will address longstanding calls for more autonomy from ethnic organizations, contributing to long lasting peace. 5. Decentralize control and management of natural resources: Amending Section 37 (b) of the national constitution so that states and regions can control and manage their lands and natural resources, including the decision whether or not non-renewable resources should be extracted. State and regional governments will also then be able to establish appropriate laws and institutions for economic planning, regulation and monitoring of extractive industries, and rights protection for current and future generations. 6. Decentralize collection of natural resource revenues: Providing legislative powers for states and regions to collect significant taxes will enable responsive local governments to manage their own budgets and allocate funds according to local plans and needs, reducing time consuming and costly bureaucracy at the national level, and better serving local populations.".....This Burmese version has been drastically reduced using OCR software, resulting in some blurred text and some pages split in half. We will replace this version if/when we get a better one.
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2016-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size: 6.52 MB 129.1 MB 5.77 MB 4.46 MB
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Description: Summary: "In 2008, Myanmar?s military rulers ratified a new constitution that ensured their continued monopoly of the country?s natural resources. Section 37 (a) states: ?the Union is the ultimate owner ofall lands and all natural resources above and below the ground, above and beneath the water and in the atmosphere” Under this constitution, the central government in Naypyidaw is not only the owner of all natural resources in the country; it also controls and manages them, enacting ?necessary laws for extraction.” This centralized control has had disastrous effects in widening inequality, fueling a cycle of conflict and violence, and depleting non-renewable resources that could be the basis of a sound economy for future generations. Arakan State provides a perfect illustration of this and lies at the heart of one of Myanmar?s most sought after resources: natural gas. The Shwe project now produces 500 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, yet none of this is used to provide electricity in Arakan State. While local communities bear livelihood and environmental destruction, human rights abuses and land confiscation, the gas is sold to China and more than one billion USD annually flows to Naypyidaw. There, accounting of the revenues remains opaque and reinvestment in Arakan?s infrastructure, education, and health is practically non-existent. The state is the second poorest in the country Until now, the military, the central government, and foreign investors have taken advantage of the centralized governance structure and a lack of protection mechanisms to make all the decisions around natural resources and reap most of the benefits. In contrast, devolving the powers to manage resources to lower levels of government will establish political, administrative, and fiscal structures so that decisions around the use of natural resources can be made at local levels with input from affected peoples. This distribution of powers makes natural resource management more accountable to the needs of local communities and will therefore ensure a more sustainable development. Drawing on the Arakan Oil Watch?s decade-long work with communities affected by natural resource investments and experiences from resource-rich countries around the world, we find six critical components to achieve sustainable natural resource management in Myanmar. They are: 1. Build peace: A moratorium on high-value natural resource extraction until political agreements and new legislation have been finalized will reduce tensions and conflict and allow time for protection laws and institutions to be established. Peace agreements that specify division of powers—such as the one in Papua New Guinea—will help prevent conflicts from re- emerging and enable subnational governments to proceed with establishing their own governance structures... 2. Broaden participation: Engaging people in the process of managing their own resources and ensuring that they receive benefits from their resources will prevent resentment and reduce conflicts. Strengthening formal participation, as is done in Latin America with community referendums, will provide immediate input from affected communities and community- based organizations on natural resource projects as well as on long-term planning decisions... 3. Decentralize governance: Transferring significant powers of authority from Naypyidaw to civilian-led state and regional governments through statutory and constitutional provisions will bring decision-making closer to affected people and make development processes more efficient and equitable. 4. Decentralize ownership of natural resources: Amending Section 37 (a) of the national constitution to enable states and regions to own their natural resources will address longstanding calls for more autonomy from ethnic organizations, contributing to long lasting peace... 5. Decentralize control and management of natural resources: Amending Section 37 (b) of the national constitution so that states and regions can control and manage their lands and natural resources, including the decision whether or not non-renewable resources should be extracted. State and regional governments will also then be able to establish appropriate laws and institutions for economic planning, regulation and monitoring of extractive industries, and rights protection for current and future generations... 6. Decentralize collection of natural resource revenues: Providing legislative powers for states and regions to collect significant taxes will enable responsive local governments to manage their own budgets and allocate funds according to local plans and needs, reducing time consuming and costly bureaucracy at the national level, and better serving local populations."
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2016-02-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.24 MB
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Description: "Three of the country?s four offshore gas fields are to be shut down in April ?for annual maintenance”, according to a senior official with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise...The Yadana, Yetagun and Zawtika gas fields are to be halted for about a week each at the end of April, said the official, who is an offshore director but declined to be named. ?We have negotiated with PTT [the gas buyer] for gas exports, and with the Ministry of Electric Power for domestic supply, to arrange a shutdown of the gas fields for maintenance,” he said yesterday. ?It will start in April around the time of the water festival.” Thailand relies heavily on natural gas for 70 percent of its electricity generation, with about one-fifth of its supply coming from Myanmar, according to Reuters. Yadana and Yetagun will be shut down for maintenance from April 10 to 19 and Zawtika from April 20 to 27, according to Reuters news agency, which quoted a statement from Thailand?s state-owned PTT..."
Creator/author: Aung Shin
Source/publisher: "Myanmat Times"
2015-03-10
Date of entry/update: 2015-03-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: "On remote Madae Island on Myanmar?s western coast, the Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is constructing a huge seaport, oil terminal and oil and gas pipeline to China for shipping more than 80% of China?s imported oil from the Middle East and Africa without people?s consent, and without implementation of EIA, SIA and FPIC. The construction of these projects has resulted in human rights abuses, massive land confiscation, environmental destruction and destruction of the islanders? livelihoods and farmlands. Islanders are living in fear of an accident or explosion resulting from the oil terminal, oil and gas pipeline and China?s oil tankers which plan to dock in this area in 2015. Madae Island is a small island located in the Kyauk Phyu township of Arakan State, on the West coast of Myanmar. The island has been inhabited by indigenous peoples for centuries. Over 800 households and 3000 people live in four villages on Madae Island, mostly consisting of fishermen and farmers. CNPC?s projects on Madae Island is not benefiting local Madae islanders, Arakan State or the rest of the people in Myanmar. The video documentary was conducted in late 2013 and 2014. "
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2015-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2015-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English, Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
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Description: " Ramree Island, Myanmar - Zaw Myint looked quizzical as he sniffed a handful of grey sludge. He had just pulled the mud up from the bottom of an oil well he?s digging on Myanmar?s impoverished western coastline, hoping for the sweet whiff of black gold. "The money I get working here is good," Zaw Myint said, standing in a shallow pool of water that glistened with the sheen of oil. However, Zaw Myint?s success may soon change. Big Oil is hot on his trail. Companies from the United States, Europe, Japan and Singapore are elbowing their way into the country they turned their backs on during the past two decades because of its appalling human rights abuses. The country fell into China?s less scrupulous embrace and, for two decades, Myanmar was the monogamous partner in a loveless marriage of convenience. Western nations are moving into the resource-rich country after decades of disinterest, challenging China?s interests... In 2011, fearing the country was sliding towards Chinese client statehood, Myanmar began a process of liberalising the economy, releasing political prisoners, and rebalancing foreign relations. As Myanmar took its first baby-steps towards democracy, Western nations eased economic sanctions. Last year, Myanmar?s President Thein Sein met with US President Barack Obama at the White House, the first such visit by a Myanmar head of state in almost 50 years. China is no longer Myanmar?s only suitor; she?s being courted, she?s seeing other people. It?s complicated... Burmah Oil: Myanmar is one of the world?s oldest oil producers, exporting its first barrel in 1853. Its discovery by British colonisers prompted the creation of the Burmah Oil Company, an early shareholder of the company that would later become oil giant BP. ..."
Creator/author: Hereward Holland
Source/publisher: Aljazeera
2014-10-17
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: "Corrupt politicians all over the world use companies and trusts with hidden ownership to seize public property worth billions of dollars. This deprives ordinary citizens of money that should be spent on development and empowers unaccountable elites, often helping them gain and maintain power at the expense of democracy, human rights and peace. Revealing the real people behind companies is critical to achieving genuine reform in Myanmar, where military families and crony tycoons have long benefited from control of natural resources like gas and gemstones. This is a critical time—in July 2014, Myanmar became a candidate member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global transparency standard which recommends that the identities of individuals who own and control oil, gas and mining companies are published. If Myanmar can meet the standard, it will go a long way to addressing the question of who really owns the companies that control the country?s most valuable natural assets. To test the waters, Global Witness asked each of the companies granted oil and gas blocks in Myanmar over the past 12 months to declare their ultimate beneficial ownership. These blocks were awarded in the wake of a public commitment by the Ministry of Energy to manage Myanmar?s energy sector in line with international best practices, and alongside the engagement of leading energy companies in Myanmar?s EITI process. As such, the willingness of block winners to open up their ownership is an important yardstick for progress on reform of Myanmar?s extractive industries..."
Source/publisher: Global Witness
2014-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.25 MB 1.75 MB
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Description: " The Oil & Gas Sector-Wide Impact Assessment (SWIA), developed by the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) in partnership with its co-founders, the Institute of Human Rights and Business and the Danish Institute of Human Rights, is intended to support responsible business practices in this growing sector of Myanmar?s economy. The Myanmar Oil & Gas SWIA puts detailed information on potential impacts of the sector into the public domain for uptake and use by a wide range of audiences. It assesses not only localised impacts on individuals and groups that may arise from projects in the sector, but also cumulative impacts and the sector?s potential impacts on Myanmar society as a whole. This is important because: Myanmar is currently facing a rapid increase in investment in its oil and gas (O&G) sector with the award of 16 onshore and 20 offshore blocks in the space of 12 months in 2013-2014 Even though the country is emerging from decades of ethnic conflict, authoritarian rule and economic isolation it is, and will remain for some time, a high-risk country with poor governance. An understanding of the potential impacts of the sector is necessary to improve the outcomes for Myanmar and its people. Responsible business conduct in the Oil & Gas sector in Myanmar therefore requires enhanced due diligence to determine what impacts business activities may have on society, including on human rights. This must include robust approaches to managing those impacts. The Oil & Gas SWIA is intended to be a resource for these efforts. The recommendations in the SWIA are directed towards government, businesses (and investors in those business), civil society and development partners for Myanmar, and are intended to support wider multistakeholder collaboration..."
Source/publisher: The Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business
2014-09-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: " The Oil & Gas Sector-Wide Impact Assessment (SWIA), developed by the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) in partnership with its co-founders, the Institute of Human Rights and Business and the Danish Institute of Human Rights, is intended to support responsible business practices in this growing sector of Myanmar?s economy. The Myanmar Oil & Gas SWIA puts detailed information on potential impacts of the sector into the public domain for uptake and use by a wide range of audiences. It assesses not only localised impacts on individuals and groups that may arise from projects in the sector, but also cumulative impacts and the sector?s potential impacts on Myanmar society as a whole. This is important because: Myanmar is currently facing a rapid increase in investment in its oil and gas (O&G) sector with the award of 16 onshore and 20 offshore blocks in the space of 12 months in 2013-2014 Even though the country is emerging from decades of ethnic conflict, authoritarian rule and economic isolation it is, and will remain for some time, a high-risk country with poor governance. An understanding of the potential impacts of the sector is necessary to improve the outcomes for Myanmar and its people. Responsible business conduct in the Oil & Gas sector in Myanmar therefore requires enhanced due diligence to determine what impacts business activities may have on society, including on human rights. This must include robust approaches to managing those impacts. The Oil & Gas SWIA is intended to be a resource for these efforts. The recommendations in the SWIA are directed towards government, businesses (and investors in those business), civil society and development partners for Myanmar, and are intended to support wider multistakeholder collaboration..."
Source/publisher: The Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business
2014-09-04
Date of entry/update: 2014-10-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 5.73 MB
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Description: "Burma will become increasingly dependent on imported crude oil and refined fuels over the next ten years because of a lack of planning and investment, an industry report has forecast. A rise in crude oil imports is highly likely in spite of an expected upsurge in onshore and offshore exploration in coming years, while underinvestment in refining capacity will necessitate more imports of petrol and diesel, said Business Monitor International (BMI) in a study of Burma?s energy resources. BMI is an international business risks analysis company based in London..."
Creator/author: William Boot
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2014-07-17
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: Summary: "In October 2013 and March 2014, Myanmar awarded 36 major oil and gas blocks to 47 international and local companies. Global Witness has contacted each of these winning companies to ask simply: who owns and controls you? Getting full answers to this question is crucial to putting an end to the corruption which has kept Myanmar?s people in poverty for so long. Secret company structures enable powerful individuals to hide their identities and there are countless examples globally of corrupt officials awarding major deals to companies which they later turn out to own. Putting company ownership details into the public domain provides a crucial safeguard against corruption. Of the 47 companies contacted, only 13 provided responses to Global Witness? ownership questions.1 Two private companies have set a positive precedent by revealing full details of the individuals who own and control them. Overall, however, these results reveal a high level of corporate secrecy which must be tackled if Myanmar?s oil and gas riches are to benefit its people..."
Source/publisher: Global Witness
2014-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 634.64 KB 302.42 KB
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Source/publisher: Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB)
2014-03-00
Date of entry/update: 2014-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: Overview and links to pdf versions of individual reports..... "MCRB will carry out a series of SWIAs to help inform government policy, advance responsible business practice and build civil society capacity to strengthen accountability. MCRB held consultations in Yangon, 24-26 March 2014, on the findings and assessments from field work across Myanmar, forming part of the forthcoming Sector-Wide Impact Assessment (SWIA) on Myanmar?s Oil & Gas sector. Three sessions were convened: Business (English language) on 24 March 2014 Local civil society (Myanmar language) on 25 March 2014 The international NGO, Embassies and donor community (English language) on 26 March 2014..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB)
2014-04-16
Date of entry/update: 2014-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: Myanmar has delayed an oil and gas exploration tender to meet the transparency standards of the Western energy majors lining up, many for the first time, to invest in the rapidly reforming nation, a senior energy ministry official said.
Source/publisher: Reuters via Arakan Oil Watch
2012-09-05
Date of entry/update: 2012-09-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Burma is rich in natural resources. Exports of natural gas alone amount to approximately US$2.5 billion in annual revenues, and these are expected to increase by 60% as three additional production blocks come on line as early as next year. Yet despite this enormous wealth, Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world. A lack of transparency around revenues from the sale of oil, gas and other natural resources, a lack of an accountable system to manage revenues, and a lack of equitable benefit sharing of resource revenues are perpetuating a resource curse in Burma. It is a country crippled by corruption, censured for major human rights violations, and continuing to suffer from a decades-old civil war between the ruling government and ethnic peoples. The country?s major businesses are controlled by military companies and cronies. Projects which extract and export natural resources have directly led to human rights abuses such as forced labor, land confiscation, rape and displacement, as well as severe environmental degradation. The revenues from these projects have in turn helped prop up authoritarian rule and enrich top military generals. There is therefore an urgent need for Burma to manage oil and gas revenues with a greater transparency and accountability as well as to reform its military-dominated economy to ensure that the benefits of the country?s resources are shared more equitably among its people and for the country?s sustainable development. in the oil and gas sector"
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 738.78 KB
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Description: นักลงทุนเริ่มหลั่งไหลเข้าไปในพม่า ซึ่งยังขาดความโปร่งใสและการตรวจสอบได้เกี่ยวกับรายได้ ซึ่งจะยิ่งส่งผลให้เกิดมรดก บาปด้านทรัพยากรมากขึน้ ของประเทศนี ้กลุ่มเคลื่อนไหวเตือนในวันนี ้ จากข้อมูลในรายงานของกลุ่ม Arakan Oil Watch รายได้จากก๊าซธรรมชาติหลายพันล้านเหรียญไม่ได้รับการบันทึกข้อมูล อย่างเหมาะสมและไม่ได้เข้ากระเป๋าของรัฐ แต่กลับถูกโยกไปเข้ากระเป๋าของนายทหารที่ทุจริต ส่งผลให้พม่ายังคงเป็น ประเทศที่มีดัชนีชีวั้ดด้านสังคมเลวร้ายสุดในโลก และเต็มไปด้วยความขัดแย้งเนื่องจากทรัพยากรธรรมชาติ
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: Thai
Format : pdf
Size: 73.78 KB
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Description: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံထဲသို့ စီးပွားရေးရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံသူများ အလုံးအရင်းနှင့်စတင်ဝင်ရောက် လာကြသော်လည်း တိုင်းပြည်တွင်းတွင် ဘဏ္ဍာငွေဆိုင်ရာ ပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှုနှင့်တာဝန်ခံမှု ဆိတ်သုန်းကင်းမဲ့နေခြင်းက တိုင်းပြည်၏ သဘာဝသယံဇာတကျိန်စာအား ပို၍ပင်ဆိုးရွားသွားစေသည်ဟု ရခိုင့်ရေနံစောင့်ကြည့်ရေး အဖွဲ့မှ ယနေ့ သတိပေးပြောကြားလိုက်သည်။ သဘာဝဓါတ်ငွေ့တင်ပို့ရောင်းချရာမှရရှိသော ဘဏ္ဍာဝင်ငွေ ဒေါ်လာဘီလီယံပေါင်းများစွာကို ပြည့်သူ့ ငွေစာရင်းများထဲတွင် ထည့်သွင်းခြင်းမရှိဘဲ အကျင့်ပျက်ခြစားနေသော စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များကသာ မတရား အလွှဲသုံးစားပြုလုပ်နေကြသောကြောင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ကမ္ဘာပေါ်မှာ အဆုးိ ရွားဆုံး လူမှုဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်မှု ညွှန်းကိန်းများနှင့်တိုင်းပြည်တစ်ခုဖြစ်နေပြီး၊ သဘာဝသယံဇာတဆိုင်ရာ ပဋိပက္ခများနှင့်ပြဿနာများကို လည်း ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်ဟု အဆိုပါအဖွဲ့က ပြောကြားသည်။
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 60.2 KB
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Description: 随着投资者开始涌入缅甸,收益透明度及问责机制的缺失正加剧该国的资源诅 咒,一个监察团体在今天发出警告。 由阿拉干石油观察发布的一份报告显示,数十亿美元的天然气销售收入没有记 录进缅甸的国家账户,而被腐败的军事统治者窃取,留给缅甸的只是一些世界最糟 糕的社会指标,并使其卷入自然资源的冲突中。
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: Chinese
Format : pdf
Size: 66.49 KB
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Description: Executive Summary: "Burma is rich in natural resources, particularly natural gas and oil. Yet instead of using these resources for the country?s development through industry and job growth, military leaders have been exporting them for over a decade. This has generated huge revenue flows, but a lack of transparency and mismanagement of these revenues has left Burma with some of the worse development indicators in the world, creating a resource curse. Sales revenues of natural gas exports alone amounted to US$ 2.5 billion in 2010-11. It is estimated that this amount will increase by over 60% to US$ 4.1 billion starting from 2013 as three additional production blocks come on line. Further revenues will be generated from over 40 additional oil and gas blocks that are currently under exploration. Despite this enormous wealth, Burma remains extremely poor and its people live with chronic energy shortages. It is a country crippled by corruption, with its major businesses controlled by military companies and cronies. Burma is censured for major human rights violations, and continues to suffer from a decades-old civil war between the ruling government and ethnic peoples. Due to Burma?s lack of protection laws, projects which extract and export natural resources have directly led to human rights abuses such as forced labor, land confiscation, rape and displacement, as well as severe environmental degradation. The projects also fuel armed conflict as government and ethnic troops clash in order to access and control project areas. The revenues from resource extraction projects have in turn helped prop up authoritarian rule and enrich top military generals. The report analyzes the previous Than Shwe regime and new military-dominated government?s lack of transparency around oil and gas revenues, lack of an accountable system to manage revenue, corruption, and a lack of equitable benefit sharing of resource revenues. Although a new ?civilian? government is now in place, under Burma?s new constitution, the military remains firmly outside the law and beyond civilian control. The role of military companies in Burma?s economy and in accessing and managing Burma?s massive oil and gas revenues remain unknown and unregulated. The government does not disclose how much it receives in gas revenues, or how those revenues are managed or spent. Foreign oil companies engaging in Burma?s oil and gas sector also refuse to publish how much and how they pay the military regime. There is therefore an urgent need for Burma to manage oil and gas revenues with greater transparency and accountability as well as to reform its military-dominated economy to ensure that the benefits of the country?s resources are shared more equitably among its people and for the country?s sustainable development. If Burma prioritizes the protection of peoples and the environment in extraction projects and manages the revenues from the sale of its resources transparently, the country?s non-renewable resources can be used sustainably for the benefit of current and future generations, decreasing the pace and need to extract resources from additional areas. Mechanisms and systems for public disclosure of money flows, independent revenue management and auditing, civil society input, and equal benefit sharing currently exist in international standards of revenue transparency and are put into practice in oil and gas producing countries around the world. This report provides key lessons from these countries that Burma can draw on to improve the management of its oil and gas revenues and work toward ending its resource curse."
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: Burmese
Format : pdf
Size: 2.77 MB
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Description: Executive Summary: "Burma is rich in natural resources, particularly natural gas and oil. Yet instead of using these resources for the country?s development through industry and job growth, military leaders have been exporting them for over a decade. This has generated huge revenue flows, but a lack of transparency and mismanagement of these revenues has left Burma with some of the worse development indicators in the world, creating a resource curse. Sales revenues of natural gas exports alone amounted to US$ 2.5 billion in 2010-11. It is estimated that this amount will increase by over 60% to US$ 4.1 billion starting from 2013 as three additional production blocks come on line. Further revenues will be generated from over 40 additional oil and gas blocks that are currently under exploration. Despite this enormous wealth, Burma remains extremely poor and its people live with chronic energy shortages. It is a country crippled by corruption, with its major businesses controlled by military companies and cronies. Burma is censured for major human rights violations, and continues to suffer from a decades-old civil war between the ruling government and ethnic peoples. Due to Burma?s lack of protection laws, projects which extract and export natural resources have directly led to human rights abuses such as forced labor, land confiscation, rape and displacement, as well as severe environmental degradation. The projects also fuel armed conflict as government and ethnic troops clash in order to access and control project areas. The revenues from resource extraction projects have in turn helped prop up authoritarian rule and enrich top military generals. The report analyzes the previous Than Shwe regime and new military-dominated government?s lack of transparency around oil and gas revenues, lack of an accountable system to manage revenue, corruption, and a lack of equitable benefit sharing of resource revenues. Although a new ?civilian? government is now in place, under Burma?s new constitution, the military remains firmly outside the law and beyond civilian control. The role of military companies in Burma?s economy and in accessing and managing Burma?s massive oil and gas revenues remain unknown and unregulated. The government does not disclose how much it receives in gas revenues, or how those revenues are managed or spent. Foreign oil companies engaging in Burma?s oil and gas sector also refuse to publish how much and how they pay the military regime. There is therefore an urgent need for Burma to manage oil and gas revenues with greater transparency and accountability as well as to reform its military-dominated economy to ensure that the benefits of the country?s resources are shared more equitably among its people and for the country?s sustainable development. If Burma prioritizes the protection of peoples and the environment in extraction projects and manages the revenues from the sale of its resources transparently, the country?s non-renewable resources can be used sustainably for the benefit of current and future generations, decreasing the pace and need to extract resources from additional areas. Mechanisms and systems for public disclosure of money flows, independent revenue management and auditing, civil society input, and equal benefit sharing currently exist in international standards of revenue transparency and are put into practice in oil and gas producing countries around the world. This report provides key lessons from these countries that Burma can draw on to improve the management of its oil and gas revenues and work toward ending its resource curse."
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.01 MB
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Description: As investors start flooding in to Burma, a lack of revenue transparency and accountability is set to exacerbate the country?s resource curse, warns a watchdog group today. According to a report by the Arakan Oil Watch, billions of dollars in revenues from the sale of natural gas have gone unrecorded in Burma?s public accounts and been siphoned off by corrupt military rulers, leaving Burma with some of the worst social indicators in the world and embroiled in conflicts over natural resources.
Source/publisher: Arakan Oil Watch
2012-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2012-03-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 11.55 KB
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Description: This report by Green November 32 in 1993 was the first ever NGO perspective report written on the Yadana gas pipeline and on the border dams as they were first discussed by Thai and Burmese governments around that time. It was actually one of the first detailed reports on any of the post 1988 environmental issues by any Burmese- or border- based organisation, and is of particular interest in the light of the current opposition to the Irrawaddy dam projects... "Officials of the Thai government and the SLORC military regime have for some years now been planning a series of huge energy joint ventures to be undertaken in some of the most fought over territory in Burma. The energy projects, if they are endorsed by the Thai Government - and implemented with the participation of Japanese and Western corporations - will have extremely serious, possibly even terminal repercussions for the Burmese pro-democracy movement which is based in these same areas of the Burma -Thai border. Indeed, this seems to be what a number of the proponents of the development projects intend to achieve, particularly the generals in Rangoon. The SLORC, as well as politicians, military men and businessmen in Thailand and abroad would garner great benefit from the destruction of the Burmese opposition groups along the border, and the opening of the way to even more unrestrained natural resource exploitation than is currently taking place. There are ten planned energy development joint ventures, comprising two offshore natural gasfield developments and eight hydro-electric dams. These are: •The Martaban Gasfield developments led by Total CFP of France •The Yetagun Gasfield exploratory program led by Texaco of the US •The Upper Salween Dam, •The Lower Salween Dam •The Nam Kok Project •The Nam Moei 3 Project •The Nam Moei 2 Project •The Klong Kra Project •The Nam Moei 1 Project, and •The Nam Mae Sai Project... The energy projects will lead to environmental and social havoc on a scale comparable to the largest development projects in the world. Indeed, the Upper Salween Dam will be among the largest in the world. Altogether the projects will directly result in the flooding and deforesting of thousands of square kilometers of the forests bordering Burma and Thailand. The projects will displace many thousands of indigenous peoples, some of them already refugees from the forty-five years of bloody civil war in Burma. Many have already been affected by military operations of the SLORC and Thai armies, operations which can easily be seen in the context of clearing the way for the development of the 820-1,000 kilometre gas pipeline or the construction of the eight dams... The energy projects will put billions of dollars into the control of an ultra-nationalist military regime that is one of the world?s worst human rights violators and that is rapidly building up a large and extraordinarily aggressive army which poses a significant threat to the stability of the region. The massive input of funds from the Western and Japanese multinational oil and energy development companies, combined with the cheap sale and presents of Chinese weaponry, and the profits from the heroin traffic that the SLORC is alleged to control, has funded this huge expansion of the SLORC armed forces... The energy joint ventures will, if signed, mark the second and higher level of engagement in the much criticised ASEAN policy of "constructive engagement" towards the SLORC regime, which through the activities of the logging, oil and fishing companies have already caused untold damage to Burma?s environment. The multinational corporations, the Keidanrens and the Thai state oil and electricity institutes PTT and EGAT are therefore amongst the most powerful influences supporting the SLORC in its brutal and undemocratic suppression of the peoples of Burma."
Source/publisher: Green November 32
1993-09-00
Date of entry/update: 2011-09-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.3 MB
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Description: "while countries in the neighbouring regions - particularly India and Thailand, but also Australia and Japan - may have important roles to play, China wields far more leverage. For those who wish to influence Burma in a positive direction, it is therefore essential to consider ways that change could be stimulated with the active participation of China, whether through sanctions, constructive engagement and/or any form of dialogue." The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on contentious topics in order to identify common ground..."
Creator/author: Åshild Kolås & Stein Tønnesson
Source/publisher: Austral Policy Forum 06-30A 24 August 2006
2006-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2011-09-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 137.15 KB
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Description: "The growing revenues from Burma?s oil and gas resources provide financial support to the Burmese military to the detriment of Burma and her peoples... AS the Burmese regime increases its isolation of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, the United Nations and Western governments, especially the US and the European Union, remain steadfast in applying diplomatic pressure on the junta. Burma?s stubborn military leaders can shrug off Western pressure, however, knowing they can rely on support from such friendly and powerful neighbors as China, India and some Southeast Asian countries, most of which have significant trade and investment links with Burma and which are inclined to follow an engagement-oriented policy towards the regime..."
Creator/author: Yeni
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 17, No. 4
2009-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2009-08-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: "...Laid Waste documents the suffering of villagers along the 180-mile Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline. Ten years after the pipeline?s initial construction, villagers along its route continue to see their land seized and income taken as they are conscripted into work as forced laborers and subject to arbitrary detentions, torture and summary execution. This report is released at a time when international debate on appropriate responses to the situation in Burma appears to be renewing. The discussion is healthy and appreciated. But there should be no question: projects like the Kanbauk to Myaing Kalay gas pipeline do not benefit the people of our country."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM)
2009-05-01
Date of entry/update: 2009-05-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 11.63 MB 3.68 MB
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Description: "In military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, large-scale natural gas projects have directly and indirectly led to violations of basic human rights through the complicity of multinational corporate actors. These abuses are ongoing and there is an unreasonably high risk they will increase as more gas projects are developed. This paper assesses the past, present, and future human rights impacts of large-scale natural gas extraction in Burma, and the implications these impacts have in terms of corporate accountability. The paper provides background information regarding Burma?s government, economic policy, and the energy sector and considers past and present human rights abuses connected to the Yadana natural gas project, developed by a consortium including Chevron, Total, PTTEP, and MOGE. The authors argue that the companies are complicit in ongoing human rights abuses in connection to their investment. The paper then describes the threat of future human rights abuses in connection to the country?s largest offshore gas deposits, concluding that there is a high risk that current human rights abuses in the proposed project areas will be exacerbated by the new gas production, and that there will likely be abuses directly linked to the Shwe pipeline project. Finally, the authors assess the interests and actors involved in the Southeast Asia regional energy security dynamic as it relates to Burma?s fast growing oil and gas sector, human rights, and corporate accountability. They argue that the energy security strategies of China, Thailand, and India—and by association, the national oil corporations under those governments—relying on Burmese resources have paid dangerously inadequate attention to the protection of human rights."
Creator/author: Matthew F. Smith, Naing Htoo
Source/publisher: Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal
2008-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2008-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 335.71 KB
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Description: New Delhi?s eagerness to supply Burma with weapons highlights new quid pro quo policies... "Increased contacts between senior military chiefs o ?n both sides of the Burma-India border, involving Indian weapons sales, are believed by analysts to have two primary objectives: to help flush out Burma-based Indian insurgents and to counter growing Chinese influence in Naypyidaw. But the sale of arms and related technical equipment is also likely to be linked to New Delhi"Look East" economic policy, including ambitions to buy huge quantities of Burma?s offshore gas in the Bay of Bengal. If the gas bid?€?against rivals China and Thailand?€?is successful, it will also involve building a costly pipeline through rebel-infested areas of northwest Burma and northeast India..."
Creator/author: Aung Lwin Oo
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 15, No. 1
2007-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-07-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Asian nations are stumbling over each other in a rush to capture the concession rights to huge gas and oil resources controlled by the Burmese junta... "Despite the efforts of some Western governments to isolate the Burmese regime economically, the stark reality is that more private companies and countries than ever are courting the Burmese generals to obtain a share of the country?s vast oil and gas resources. International energy companies from nine countries are now competing for exploration or production rights for gas and oil both offshore and o?nshore in Burma. A Thai company recently discovered a huge offshore gas field that may harbor as much as two trillion cubic feet of gas..."
Creator/author: William Boot
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol. 15, No. 7
2007-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Burmese junta controls huge natural resources but inefficiency and incompetence—and bizarre priorities—keep the rewards from reaching the people While most Burmese struggle daily with high fuel prices, commodity shortages and a lack of electricity, huge quantities of natural gas lie unexploited under the sea off the west coast of Arakan because of the military regime?s indecision or incompetence. A Burmese worker checks the level of gasoline being transported in drums for sale to roadside outlets [Photo: Yuzo/The Irrawaddy] Burma is rich in national energy resources—with gas, oil and hydroelectric power potential—but critics say the military government is too busy planning grandiose projects to make the best use of energy resources for the people?s benefit. Analysts who closely observe the regime say corruption and oftentimes strange priorities that are only apparent to the tight inner circle that controls the country?s decision-making process also account for the underdevelopment of the country?s money-making resources. Energy industry analysts say that the recoverable gas reserves that have been independently verified in just two blocks of the offshore Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal could bring in US $2 billion annually for at least the next 25 years..."
Creator/author: William Boot
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Vol 15, No. 10
2007-10-00
Date of entry/update: 2008-04-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
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Description: Report to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs..."India and China are both characterized by a tremendous increase in energy consumption, of which an increasing share derives from imports. Very rapid economic growth always makes it difficult to arrive at a sound balance between demand and supply, and this tends to generate waste, bottlenecks and insecurity. Although both countries are trying hard to provide appropriate energy, increase their energy efficiency, and diversify their sources of supply, they are becoming increasingly dependent on imported oil, and the Persian Gulf is set to remain their predominant source of oil in the coming decades. Instability in the Middle East thus poses a serious challenge to the security of China and India, just as it does for Japan, the US and many European countries. The question of maintaining a stable supply of fossil fuels poses several security challenges. One is to boost one?s own production, another to diversify one?s sources of import, and a third to secure the transportation of oil and gas on vulnerable sea routes; or over land through pipelines that depend on long-term strategic relationships with the producing countries. In China and India a heightened awareness of the geopolitical implications of energy supply and demand has given energy issues an increasing prominence both in their domestic and foreign policies. However, it is difficult to say if this leads to more tension in their foreign relations or if instead it pushes them towards increased international cooperation. Plans are certainly being made for future possible ‘resource wars?, but emphasis is presently being put on economic competition, and on seeking to maximise each country?s position on the international energy market. Then again, such increasing resource competition may contribute to raising the stakes of conflict in areas where national jurisdiction has not been resolved (East China Sea, South China Sea), and also in some of the energy exporting countries. Burma is one such country, in which the energy security dynamics of India and China are played out, and this is detailed in an appendix to the report. The report is based on available literature, online energy data, and communication with Indian and Chinese researchers. We have used country reports and statistics provided by the International Energy Agency (IEA), statistics, forecasts and analyses by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), unpublished academic papers, books and articles by Indian and Chinese researchers, and reports by several European and American analysts. Based on our assessments of the energy security strategies and interests of the major players in the region, the report outlines three scenarios for the future of international relations in Asia. The first, called ? is the most positive and also, in our judgment, the most likely. The second scenario, ?, presents a possible embargo against China, and is perhaps the least likely, at least in the near future. The third scenario, ? presents the nightmare scenario of a full scale ? with global impact and serious consequences for India and China. The situation in Iraq, and especially the ongoing developments with relation to Iran?s nuclear programme, force us to say that this scenario is not just a fantasy fiction, but a real possibility, even in the short term. The final section of the report offers suggestions as to implications of the outlined scenarios for Norwegian foreign policy formulation. Four areas of cooperation that would improve energy security in China and India, as well as globally, are identified: 1) support for the promotion of energy efficiency, 2) assistance in the development of clean coal and gas technology for electricity production, 3) a campaign for engaging the world?s great powers in a major research effort to develop transportation technologies that do not depend on oil, 4) assistance in the nomination and promotion of Indian and Chinese candidature for IEA membership..."
Creator/author: Stein Tønnesson, Åshild Kolås
Source/publisher: International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)
2006-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Daewoo?s massive gas strike puts Rakhine region in spotlight -- ?The discovery of gas deposits in the A-1 block was one of factor that attracted international oil companies to this region; in the past gas deposits like this would not have interested oil companies,” said U Chan Mya, general manager of Smart technical services company...Nation set for huge increase in oil and gas investment ?Daewoo and PTTEP both have to build platforms and pipelines to transport the gas from the A-1, A-3 and M-9 blocks. This kind of infrastructure investment will certainly boost FDI for the next two or three years at least,” ...The coloured history of the Burmah Oil Company » Asian explorers head for deep water » Why do we need oil and natural gas? » A study of abundance: major onshore and offshore oil and gas fields in Myanmar » Increased gas exports to underpin eco growth » Harnessing energy from the clouds » Energy sector?s ‘nuclear renaissance? » Overview of major oil field service companies » Government speeds up CNG filling in Yangon » World looks green as local industry battles for life » Reality of US$100 oil not far off » Fuelling the future with Jatropha Curcas » Giving back through socioeconomic programs » Energy outlook grim: study » Negotiations for sale of Daewoo gas continuing » China seeks way around ‘Malacca Dilemma?.
Source/publisher: "The Myanmar Times"
2007-08-00
Date of entry/update: 2007-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: This edition of the quarterly ASEAN Energy Bulletin features country articles on the status, prospects and future direction of oil and gas supply, processing and refining in the Southeast Asia region. The Myanmar article, written by U Soe Myint, of the Energy Planning Department of the state Energy Ministry, is a useful summary of upstream and downstream aspects of the oil and gas industry in the country. It is accompanied by map showing the location of both onshore and offshore development blocks offered in concession by the Ministry.
Creator/author: Soe Myint
Source/publisher: ASEAN Energy Bulletin
2002-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2005-08-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Oil and gas
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.49 MB
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