Junta-owned Myanmar Oil and Natural Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and Thailand’s Gulf Petroleum Myanmar (GPM) signed a product-sharing contract in Naypyitaw on Thursday for offshore natural gas production, the first new natural gas project since the 2021 coup.
The business deal was signed as the embattled regime has repeatedly lamented budget deficits amid the escalating civil war in Myanmar.
It concerns the Min Ye Thu project in the Mottama Gulf.
Gulf Petroleum Myanmar is a subsidiary of Thailand’s Northern Gulf Petroleum, which it operates in partnership with the crony SMART Group of Companies, established under the former dictatorship to service the military-controlled petroleum industry. GPM’s leadership duly includes Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing, the chair and director of the SMART Group.
MOGE is the junta’s single largest source of foreign revenue through fossil fuel sales, enabling the regime to commit atrocities against its own people, and has been sanctioned by the EU and U.S.
According to junta media there are four major offshore gas projects—Yadana, Yetagun, Zawtika, and Shwe—as well as two smaller ones, making Min Ye Thu the seventh.
Two major offshore gas projects—Yadana and Zawtika—are operated by Thailand’s partially state-owned oil giant PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP), along with associated pipelines in partnership with MOGE.
The Yadana project has long been a lucrative source of revenue for the junta through the sale of gas to PTT, the parent company of PTTEP.
GPM has also operated the Yetagun gas project since 2022 following the exit of Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas. It hopes to start extraction of natural gas at Min Ye Thu by 2028.
Its mother company Northern Gulf Petroleum has a complex structure, with shell companies in Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, and Singapore, which are known corporate tax havens, watchdog Justice For Myanmar said.
Energy Minister Ko Ko Lwin said he was” delighted” by the new project as the production at the major offshore projects is declining, and their contracts are nearing completion. He added the new project will fund new exploration and extraction, increasing foreign currency income.
That money will then be used by the junta for attacks on its own people, especially a massive rise in indiscriminate airstrikes on resistance-controlled areas.
Several major energy companies have withdrawn from Myanmar since the 2021 coup due to concerns over human rights abuses and political instability. Among them were the U.S.’ Chevron, France’s TotalEnergies, and Australia’s Woodside. Chevron and TotalEnergies also withdrew from Yadana.
