Chapter 11 Myanmar petroleum systems, including the offshore area

This report does not claim to be an exhaustive review of the petroleum sytems of Myanmar but a brief summary of some of the salient points, based on: more than 40 years of experience by the author, with extensive fieldwork, drilling of wells and exploring for petroleum in most of the prospective basins in Mynmar; research in the laboratory as Chief Research Officer of Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise (MOGE); countless discussions and exchanges of views with Myanmar and foreign academics and petroleum explorers; and as participant in joint co-operations with foreign academic scientific teams and petroleum operators in Myanmar. The reader will excuse the author for not having covered some plays and basins for which too little published literature exists. Oil exploration and production in Myanmar date back to the thirteenth century, a time of manual excavation from hand-dug wells in the Yenangyaung District (now in the Magwe Division of Central Myanmar). According to Chinese accounts, extraction and local trading in the oil business began in the thirteenth century. Trade with the Ayeyarwaddy Delta started in 1824 and the export of crude oil commenced in 1853, earlier than ‘Colonel’ Edwin Drake's well in Pennsylvania, USA on 28 August 1859, widely regarded as the origin of the present petroleum industry. After the British annexation of Upper Burma in 1886, the Burmah Oil Company (BOC) was established and, in 1887, introduced mechanized drilling at Yenangyaung. This resulted in significant discoveries of oil, followed by drilling at Yenangyat in 1893 and at Chauk (Singu) in 1902. In 1918 the oil production of Yenangyaung Field was over 5.8 MMbbl per year and, in 1941, Chauk's production peaked at over 4 MMbbl. At that time Myanmar was ranked 14th among all the petroleum-producing nations in the world. In 1963 BOC was purchased by the …