Myanmar announces offshore oil and gas tenders

The Ministry of Energy announced 61 winning bidders for 30 offshore oil and gas exploration blocks, according to the latest Myanmar offshore blocks bidding round held on March 26.

“The tender for 30 oil and gas blocks and 19 deepwater and 11 shallow water exploration blocks is aimed at enabling local companies to get the investment opportunities via a joint venture system,” said Pe Zin Tun, director-general of the Ministry of Energy.

International winners of the tenders will be working with at least one local partner, according to tender regulations. Making a joint-venture with local companies is not mandatory as the foreign companies have to take risks when investing in offshore shallow water blocks, he added.

61 companies passed the qualification requirements. These include 14 from Australia, 7 from India, 6 from England and the USA, 4 from Singapore, 3 each from Canada and South Korea, 2 each from Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, 1 from Brunei, British Virgin Islands, China, France, Israel, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, UAE and Vietnam.

Contracts will be awarded to those companies only after a profit sharing contract between each company and the Ministry of Energy has been approved by the Union Attorney-General Office, the Auditor General’s Office, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of National Planning and Development and the Central Bank of Myanmar.

The contracts could earn state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise a total of $ 226 million in signing bonuses alone, $ 91 million for shallow water exploration blocks and $ 135 million for deep water exploration blocks.