ONGC Videsh-GAIL India consortium, which holds 30 per cent interest in recently-discovered gas field in offshore Myanmar, is eyeing 50 per cent stake of South Korean Daewoo International in an adjacent gas block.
A team of senior officials from GAIL and OVL visited Yangon earlier this week to persuade the Myanmar government to allocate them half of Daewoo's 100 per cent holding in the A-3 Block, which was recently awarded to the Korean firm.
Block A-3 is adjacent to Block A-1, where Daewoo-OVL-GAIL consortium had made the Shew (gold) discovery that had initial estimated recoverable reserves of between 4 trillion and 6 trillion cubic feet of gas and expect to find a further 7-12 tcf.
"We are keen on a stake in A-3 Block as gas from the two blocks can be tied to make transporting it in the form of liquefied natural gas by ships to India economically attractive," senior government officials said.
New Delhi is considering liquefying natural gas found in Myanmar at 160 degrees and then shipping it in special tankers as it received lukewarm response from Dhaka to the earlier proposal of laying a pipeline from Myanmar to India via Bangladesh for transporting its share of gas in A-1.
"If our share from Myanmar is 10 million standard cubic meters per day, then shipping the gas as LNG would become economically viable," the officials said adding value-added products like C2/C3 and LPG can be extracted at Myanmar port before shipping the lean gas.
Yangon has not yet responded on the matter.
The 6780 sq-km block A-3 is believed to hold similar resources to A-1, in which ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, is a 20 per cent partner. Gas utility GAIL has 10 per cent stake.
Drilling in the block is slated to begin in 2006 after seismic studies, officials said.
"A combined liquefication plant for blocks A-1 and A-3 can be set up and LNG exported to India, Japan and Korea. If Myanmar consents, construction of LNG facility may start by 2007," they said.
India is prepared to invest in an LNG project in Myanmar provided the gas reserves are sufficient to justify it.
