Sino-Myanmar pipelines refers to the oil and natural gas pipelines linking

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

's deep-water port of

Kyaukphyu Kyaukpyu ( my, ကျောက်ဖြူမြို့ ; also spelt Kyaukphyu) is a major town in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar. It is located on the north western corner of Yanbye Island on Combermere Bay, and is 250 miles (400 ...

(

Sittwe Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers empty ...

) in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

with

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headqua ...

Yunnan province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

of China.

History

Talks between China and Myanmar on the feasibility of the project began in 2004. In December 2005, PetroChina signed a deal with Myanmar's Government to purchase natural gas over a 30-year period. Based on this agreement, the parent company of PetroChina,

China National Petroleum Corporation The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) () is a major national oil and gas corporation of China and one of the largest integrated energy groups in the world. Its headquarters are in Dongcheng District, Beijing. CNPC was ranked fourt ...

(CNPC), signed on 25 December 2008 a contract with the

Daewoo International POSCO International Corporation (포스코인터내셔널) is South Korea's largest trading company and a subsidiary of POSCO POSCO (formerly Pohang Iron and Steel Company) is a South Korean steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South ...

-led consortium to purchase natural gas from the Shwe gas field in A-1 offshore block. The plan to build the oil and gas pipelines was approved by China's National Development and Reform Commission in April 2007. In November 2008, China and Myanmar agreed to build a US$1.5 billion oil pipeline and US$1.04 billion natural gas pipeline. In March 2009, China and Myanmar signed an agreement to build a natural gas pipeline, and in June 2009 an agreement to build a crude oil pipeline. The inauguration ceremony marking the start of construction was held on 31 October 2009 on Maday Island. The Myanmar section of the gas pipeline was completed on 12 June 2013 and gas started to flow to China on 21 October 2013. The oil pipeline was completed in Aug, 2014.

Route

The oil and natural gas pipelines run in parallel and start near Kyaukphyu on Made island port on the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar (19°21'52.39"N, 93°41'3.91"E), run under the sea for to mainland ( 19°21'26.09"N, 93°44'3.41"E) and then run through

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

Pyin Oo Lwin Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...

, and

Namkham Namhkam ( my, နမ့်ခမ်းမြို့; shn, ၼမ်ႉၶမ်း; tdd, ᥘᥛᥳ ᥑᥛᥰ), also spelled Nam Kham is the principal town of Namhkam Township in northern Shan State, Myanmar, situated on the southern bank of the ...

in Myanmar before entering China at the border city of

Ruili Ruili (; tdd, ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ᥛᥣᥝᥰ; shn, မိူင်းမၢဝ်း; th, เมืองมาว; my, ရွှေလီ) is a county-level city of Dehong Prefecture, in the west of Yunnan province, People's Republic of China. It ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

province. The oil pipeline, which eventually terminates in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, is long. The natural gas pipeline will extend further from Kunming to

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

and Guangxi in China, running a total of . The China-Myanmar crude oil pipeline project operation corresponds with China's "Belt and Road" Initiative, which will provide more direct way for China's imports of crude oil to bypass the crowded Malacca Strait. China plans to construct additional pipelines in coming years.

Description

The oil pipeline will have a capacity of 12 million tonnes of crude oil per year. It would diversify China's crude oil imports routes from the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, and avoid traffic through the

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conn ...

. Oil storage tanks will be built on an island near the port of Kyaukphyu. For oil processing China will build refineries in

Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Cou ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of th ...

, and in Yunnan. The gas pipeline will allow delivery of natural gas from Burma's offshore fields to China with an expected annual capacity of up to 12 bcm of natural gas. The pipeline will be supplied from the A-1 and A-3 Shwe oil field. China would start receiving natural gas from Burma's Shwe project through the pipeline in April 2013. The Shwe, Shwe-Phyu, and Mya areas in the A-1 and A-3 blocks, estimated to hold 127–218 bcm of natural gas in total, are operated by a group led by Daewoo International Corp. The operators group also includes

Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise ( my, မြန်မာ့ရေနံနှင့် သဘာဝဓါတ်ငွေ့လုပ်ငန်း; abbreviated MOGE) is a national oil and gas company of Myanmar. It was established in 1963. MOG ...

GAIL Gail may refer to: People *Gail (given name), list of notable people with the given name Surname * Jean-Baptiste Gail (1755–1829), French Hellenist scholar * Max Gail (born 1943), American actor * Sophie Gail (1775–1819), French singer and ...

, and

Korea Gas Corporation Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) is a South Korean public natural gas company that was established by the Korean government in 1983. KOGAS has grown into the largest LNG-importing company in the world and operates four LNG regasification terminals ...

. The total project of pipelines is expected to cost . In July 2014 CNPC celebrated the first anniversary of the launch of the Myanmar-China natural gas pipeline by announcing that nearly two billion cubic metres of gas has been piped from Indian Ocean plays onto the Asian continent. A railway that will connect Muse and Lashio is part of the project. The railway will be 80 miles long and will include 41 bridges, 36 tunnels and 7 stations.

Controversy

A number of protests in Burma and abroad took place against the construction of the pipeline. The pipelines have sparked protests over environmental and safety concerns, and inadequate compensation arrangements for local residents. Critics have also said the contract, which was signed under the

military regime A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

, should be revisited and that Burma should not be exporting gas when three-quarters of the population lack electricity.

Operating company

The project will be implemented jointly by

(CNPC) and Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). CNPC will hold a 50.9% stake and manage the project, and MOGE will own the rest.

References