Bangladesh Plans Dispatching Team to Talk with Myanmar

http://energybangla.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=EBReport&article=1210

Monday, 11.24.2008, 11:59pm (GMT)


The state-owned Petrobangla is working towards establishment of friendly working relations with their Myanmar counterpart, Myanmar Oil and Gas, to augment bilateral understanding, officials said.

It will soon seek the energy ministry's consent for sending a delegation for talks with the Myanmar Oil and Gas as part of its initiative to establish mutual understanding between the two state-run bodies of the two countries.

This initiative from Petrobangla is a follow-up to the visit of a Myanmar delegation last week, when both Dhaka and Yangon agreed to continue talks until resolving the bilateral dispute over demarcation of the maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal.


"We will send a proposal to the energy ministry within a day or two seeking approval for sending a delegation for discussion with the Myanmar counterparts," Petrobangla Chairman Jalal Ahmed told.

He said the Petrobangla delegation is expected to visit Myanmar in December next if the energy ministry permits.

Dhaka and Yangon were locked in a duel early this month to establish their respective rights to exploration of oil and gas in the prospective Bay of Bengal.

The tensions between the two neighbors began to rise at the beginning of November when Myanmar started exploring oil and gas in one of its disputed offshore blocks, AD-7, in the bay that overlaps Bangladesh’s offshore block DS-08-13.

After a week of standoff, the tension eased following intervention of China and South Korea.

Pointing to the Petrobangla delegation's visit to Myanmar, a senior official said both the sides might sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to ensure future cooperation in the energy sector, if mutually agreed.

Petrobangla earlier signed MoUs with Thailand’s state-run PTT Exploration and Production Company and a consortium of Korean energy companies to enhance cooperation.

Myanmar and Bangladesh sharing around 320 kilometers of bordering areas are among the many impoverished countries around the globe.

According to an independent survey, Myanmar has encroached on half a dozen of Bangladesh’s offshore gas blocks in the Bay.

After intruding into Bangladesh’s offshore blocks, the Southeast Asian country already leased out those to Chinese, Indian and South Korean companies for exploration in last several years.

The companies that were awarded the disputed offshore blocks in the Bay include the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) and South Korean Daewoo International.

The Chinese CNPC was awarded by Myanmar the block AD-8 that overlaps Bangladesh’s deep-sea offshore blocks - DS-08-18 and part of DS-08-17 and DS-08-13.

The Indian ONGC was awarded Myanmar’s block AD-9 that overlaps the Bangladeshi offshore gas blocks DS-08-22, DS-08-23, DS-08-27 and DS-08-28.