BANGKOK, Nov 13: Thailand’s largest oil exploration firm, PTT Exploration and Production, said on Tuesday it would invest at least $1 billion over the next five years to develop its offshore gas project in Myanmar.

PTTEP this year began exploration of the M-9 block in the southwestern Gulf of Martaban by working with Myanmar’s top state-run oil enterprise, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.

The company plans to drill more exploration wells this year and start installing production equipment in 2008, said PTTEP spokesman Sitthichai Jayant.

“Our activities in the M-9 project so far have confirmed that the gas reserve of this block is promising,” Sitthichai told AFP.

“PTTEP has already laid down a development plan for M-9, which calls for an investment of at least $1 billion starting next year onward. It usually takes five years for developing a gas project until it starts production.” The M-9 project is not included in PTTEP’s five-year investment plans for 2007-2011, which require 281 billion baht ($8.3 billion), Sitthichai said.

The block has been the focus of PTTEP’s ongoing offshore gas projects in Myanmar’s Martaban Gulf.

Hungry for energy, Thailand imports about 20pc of its gas from military-ruled Myanmar, which is under US and European sanctions, and is vying for a bigger share of its impoverished neighbour’s vast natural resources.

State media in Myanmar previously estimated the M-9 block contained 8 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Sitthichai said the company aimed to start initial production by 2011 for both local use and export.

PTTEP wholly owns the M-9 block but Sitthichai said it was looking for potential investment partners.

“We have been in talks with a state-owned oil company from Oman which are interested to co-invest in the project. We are likely to give them a minority stake of less than 10 per cent,” Sitthichai said.

Myanmar, one of the world’s poorest nations, is under a series of US and European economic sanctions imposed over the junta’s human rights abuses and its recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

But the impact of the sanctions has been weakened as energy-hungry neighbours such as China, India and Thailand spend billions of dollars for a share of Myanmar’s vast energy resources to solve power problems at home.

According to 2006 official figures, 13 foreign oil companies are working on 33 projects in Myanmar. —AFP