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The visiting Indian Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar had a meeting this afternoon with the Prime Minister of Myanmar, Lt. Gen. Soe Win at Yangon. The Prime Minister welcomed India’s participation in the development of the energy sector in Myanmar and urged an active Indian role in the development of the various petroleum and gas blocks on-shore, off-shore and deep sea, that were on offer. The Indian Petroleum Minister said that given the geographical, historical and cultural links, India and Myanmar were natural partners in the energy sector. Given the geographical proximity, India also had a special interest in the development of Myanmar energy resources.
Earlier, Mr. Aiyar and the Myanmar Energy Minister, Brig-Gen. Lun Thi had Delegation level discussions on energy cooperation. Giving an exposition of Myanmar’s resources, the Energy Minister identified the various blocks that were on offer for exploitation by foreign companies and asked for active Indian participation in developing them. He expanded on the various future plans that Myanmar had, particularly in regard to the setting up of LNG capabilities in Myanmar as also the Special Economic Zone in Rakhine, which would bring together various energy-related facilities.
The Indian Minister confirmed that India was deeply interested in expanding its participation in Myanmar’s energy sector. He pointed out that this participation would encompass full range of energy interests, including on-shore and off-shore exploitation, refining and expansion of downstream capabilities. Shri Aiyar noted that this cooperation would have mutually beneficial economic and political implications for both countries. He offered a Line of Credit amounting to US$ 20 million to upgrade Thanlyn Refinery. The Indian Minister also offered India’s training facilities for Myanmar technicians and experts.
Shri Aiyar invited the Myanmar energy Minister to India to pursue the dialogue, particularly with regard to India’s involvement in projects in the Special Economic Zone. He specially thanked the Myanmar Minister for inviting the Minister of State for Energy of Bangladesh Mr. A.K.M. Mosharraf Hossain so that there could be trilateral discussions in Yangon with regard to the setting up of the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India gas pipeline.
At the end of the discussions, the two Ministers signed the Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in Petroleum Sector between the Ministry of Energy of the government of the Union of Myanmar and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas of Government of the Republic of India. The agreement commits the two governments to promote cooperation in the full range of energy-related activity covering the upstream and downstream sectors, marketing, training, and coordination in the development of energy-related policies.
The bilateral discussions concluded today will be followed by trilateral discussions tomorrow between the Indian, Bangladesh and Myanmar Petroleum Ministers when there will in-depth discussions on the modalities of transporting Myanmar gas by pipeline to points in India.
RCJ/KC/ mou signed on energy cooperation (11.1.05)
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