Human rights groups and industry executives have slammed Woodside Energy’s rationale to proceed with a major gas development and exploration campaign in Myanmar following a military coup and subsequent bloody protests.
Transparency campaigners in Myanmar have appealed to foreign upstream producers to stop paying revenue to the military-led government which seized power in coup on 1 February.
Australia’s Woodside Energy is set to supply 0.84 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to RWE, Germany’s largest power producer, for seven years starting 2025.
There is a high risk that political turmoil in Myanmar will negatively affect the energy sector, however, Chinese companies look set to benefit from the tumultuous environment, according to Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research.
Malaysian national oil company (NOC) Petronas said that it is making every effort to ensure the safety of about 155 workers that are sub-contracted on a barge servicing its Yetagun platform in the Andaman Sea off Myanmar following the military coup.
The bloodless military coup in Myanmar has triggered some upstream companies to assess whether they should activate force majeure clauses in their production-sharing contracts (PSCs) with the government.
The atmosphere in Myanmar remains volatile after the military seized power from the National League for Democracy (NLD) government and is creating logistical challenges for upstream companies, including Woodside Energy, that operate in the country.
The apparent overthrow of the Aung San Suu Kyi administration by the Myanmar military threatens more than $1 billion of potential upstream investment in the Southeast Asian nation.
With Myanmar’s general elections in the rearview mirror, upstream development expenditure could more than double to over $1 billion by 2023 compared to this year’s spend.
Aberdeen’s energy sector has been urged to invest in Western Australia as the country’s largest producer of natural gas embarks on a mammoth £20bn project.
Woodside Petroleum Ltd. may look to funnel gas from the Scarborough field off Western Australia to one of its existing liquefied natural gas plants after agreeing to a $400 million deal to buy half of BHP Billiton Ltd.’s stake in the remote offshore resource.
Australian company Woodside Energy has awarded Norwegian engineering services firm Aibel a FEED contract for the subsea tie back to the Ngujima-Yin FPSO.