Myanmar's gas exports to Thailand surge 55pc

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

Saturday, February 23, 2008YANGON:
Military-ruled Myanmar, facing a spate of sanctions from the West for its human rights record, saw its natural gas exports to neighbouring Thailand soar 55 per cent in the first half of the current fiscal year.The state-run Central Statistical Organisation said in a recent report the junta made $1.56 billion from exports of 324,109 million cubic feet of natural gas in April-September 2007, a 76 per cent jump in value from the same period last year.

Thailand, which uses natural gas as its prime fuel for power production and which is the sole importer of Myanmar gas, buys between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of its gas requirements from its western neighbour.The two countries signed an agreement in 1995 for the sale of gas from Myanmar's two offshore fields, and delivery of gas started through a cross-border pipeline in July 1998.

Myanmar gets most of its export earnings from selling gas to Thailand, which is competing against China and India for a slice of the country's abundant gas reserves, despite international calls for it to shun trading with the junta. The United States, which imposed a ban on new investment in Myanmar in 1997, tightened sanctions after the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September last year, in which at least 31 people were killed.