Oil companies look to exploit Burma

[Breeze54]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Oil-companies-look-to-exploit-Burma/2007/09/30/1191090915956.html">Oil companies look to exploit Burma

September 30, 2007 - 7:14AM

While Burma's military junta cracks down on pro-democracy protests, oil companies are busy jostling for access
to the country's largely untapped natural gas and oil fields. Just last Sunday - as marches led by Buddhist monks drew thousands in the country's biggest cities - Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in Burma's capital Rangoon for the signing of contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd and Burma's military rulers to explore three offshore blocks.

Companies from China, South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere are also looking to exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian country. France's Total SA and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, currently pump gas from fields off Burma's coast through a pipeline to Thailand, which takes 90 per cent of Burma's gas output, according to Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production PLC. But investing in Burma has brought accusations that petroleum corporations offer economic support to the country's repressive junta, and in some cases are complicit in human rights abuses.

The military's bloody clampdown on the protests this week have intensified calls
from international activist groups for energy companies to pull out of the country.

"They are funding the dictatorship," said Marco Simons, US legal director at EarthRights International,
an environmental and human rights group with offices in Thailand and Washington.
"The oil and gas companies have been one of the major industries keeping the regime in power."

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Offshore, nine companies, including Total, Petronas, PTTEP, South Korea's Daewoo International Corp and Chinese
state-run companies China National Offshore Oil Corp, or CNOOC, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec,
are exploring or developing 29 blocks, Total said. Both Total and Chevron have broadly defended their business in the nation....

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