US-listed oilfield corporation Schlumberger has continued to supply the Myanmar junta’s top earner, Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), despite sanctions imposed by the US State Department, according to activist group Justice for Myanmar (JFM).
The US imposed sanctions on MOGE in October 2023, citing the hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign revenue it channels into regime coffers every year to fund purchases of weapons and military materials from abroad.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the junta has killed more than 4,830 people and arbitrarily arrested over 26,000, while its indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling have destroyed homes and displaced over 2.3 million people.
The sanctions sought to disrupt the regime’s access to the US financial system and curtail its ability to perpetrate atrocities, the state department stated in its announcement.
But JFM reports that Schlumberger Vietnam Services Co Ltd sent two shipments to the managing director of MOGE in June and November 2023. The shipments contained laser alignment equipment designed to measure cables used in oil and gas wells, it stated.
The latter shipment came after the US imposed sanctions in October 2023 on the provision of financial services to MOGE, falling short of full sanctions, it said.
Schlumberger is a New York-listed corporation known as the world’s largest offshore driller. Its Panama-based subsidiary, Schlumberger Logelco, has a branch in Myanmar that remains registered.
JFM previously reported that the Myanmar branch earned revenues of US$ 51.7 million in the year to September 2021, citing leaked tax filings, and made pre-tax profits of $5.4 million on those revenues.
A filing for the last three months of 2021 shows the branch earned another $11.5 million, mostly from POSCO International and other foreign oil companies, but also directly from MOGE, JFM said.
It said MOGE made multiple payments to Schlumberger in 2022.
The activist group said Schlumberger and other oilfield services companies are complicit in the junta’s war crimes and crimes against humanity committed with total impunity against the people of Myanmar.
JFM identified 22 oilfield services companies from the US and other countries including Schlumberger that it said help to prop up the military regime.
The group called on Schlumberger and other oil companies to halt operations in Myanmar and suspend any payments to the junta, holding the money in protected accounts.
“We call on governments to immediately sanction MOGE and all other sources of the illegal junta’s funds, arms, equipment and jet fuel,” it said.
MOGE was also sanctioned by the European Union in February 2022.
