Japanese oil firm ENEOS announces exit from Myanmar gas project

Bangkok, 2 may (EFE).- Japanese oil firm ENEOS announced Monday its exit from a gas project in southern Myanmar owing to the country’s social situation, days after its partners in Thailand and Malaysia also pulled out from the venture.

The company said in a statement that it has decided to withdraw from the Yetagun project, where it controlled a 19.3 percent stake through its subsidiary Nippon Oil.

ENEOS “has decided to withdraw after discussions taking into consideration the country’s current situation, including the social issues, and project economics based on the technical evaluation of Yetagun gas fields,” the statement said.

The exit of the Japanese company will be effective once approved by the Myanmar government, the statement added.

On Saturday, Thai state oil company PTTEP and Malaysia’s Petronas, partners in the Yetagun project, also announced their withdrawal, leaving Myanmar’s state firm as the only company remaining in the project.

Since the military coup on Feb.1, 2021, which ended a decade of incipient democracy, international energy companies such as Chevron, Total and Woodside have decided to leave Myanmar over human rights abuses committed by the military junta.

Several nonprofits have denounced that the massive revenues from the collaboration of oil companies in Myanmar finance the military regime, supporting its atrocities against its own people.

More than 1,800 people have died as a result of brutal repression by police and soldiers, who have even shot and killed peaceful and unarmed demonstrators, according to data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) in Myanmar.

AAPP also has records of 13,496 people arrested since the coup. The United Nations Human Rights Office, the Myanmar army has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including arbitrary arrests, torture, killing civilians, burning villages and extrajudicial executions.

Other companies such as the Japanese brewer Kirin, the multinational British American Tobacco and the Norwegian telecommunications firm Telenor have already broken business ties in operations liked to the Asian country. EFE

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