A SURVEY by Myanmar and French geologists indicates the presence
of hydrocarbon deposits in deepwater blocks off the coast of Myanmar,
an official from the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) told
The Myanmar Times on Tuesday.
MOGE chief geologist U Khin Maung Kyi said the study, sponsored
by France’s Total Oil Company, found evidence of hydrocarbon
reserves off the Rakhine State coast.
The initial goal of the survey was to examine the movement of
tectonic plates as a goodwill gesture to Myanmar, U Khin Maung
Kyi said. He added that the team did not find any concerning movement
of the plates, which were rubbing parallel to each other but showed
no signs of overlapping.
“The survey area covered 2500 square kiolometres and we
made 15 multi-channel seismic surveys,” U Khin Maung Kyi
said.
The team of 33 geologists – five from Myanmar and 28 from
the College de France – conducted the survey in May under
the name “Mataban Cruise 2006 Project”.
The project was started in 2000 and this was the third study
after a second survey in 2005, U Khin Maung Kyi said.
“We could only make a shallow-water seismic survey last
year, which looked at areas where water was up to 150 metres deep.
But this year we used a multi-channel seismic surveying device
that can measure the deepwater areas.
“We discovered thick sedimentary rock in deepwater regions
and found channels and basin floor fans, which are evidence of
existing oil and gas reserves,” he said, based on the project’s
preliminary survey results.
The final result will be announced in about six months by the
French team, who took all the data back to France to put together
a final report, U Khin Maung Kyi said.
He added that the survey’s findings should attract foreign
investment to Myanmar’s newly-demarcated deepwater blocks.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Energy defined an additional
18 deepwater blocks with depths over 200 metres – 10 in
Rakhine State and eight in the Mottama area, which have the prefixes
AD and MD respectively.
“According to the survey, we can find oil and gas reserves
in these new blocks,” U Khin Maung Kyi said.
