India eyes military favors for
Myanmar oil By Siddharth
Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It appears that
India is not going to make it easy for China to
extend its influence in Myanmar to get a share of
that country's rich gas resources. While recent
oil negotiations have faltered between India and
Myanmar, increased military cooperation might be
New Delhi's second-best option to obtain favor and
influence in the secretive Southeast Asian
country.
Amnesty International this week
quoted "credible sources" saying New Delhi has
plans to sell military helicopters to Myanmar that
will
undermine a European Union arms embargo on the
military-ruled country.
India's proposed
sale of the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) made
by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, and which includes
components from Britain, Germany, France, Sweden,
Italy and Belgium, may harm the EU's almost
20-year restriction on such sales, whether
"directly or indirectly", the London-based group
said. However, India has denied Amnesty's
assertions, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman in
New Delhi called them "completely baseless".
But despite New Delhi's denial of the
Amnesty report, there is reason to believe that
India will not take China's influence in the area
lying down. Indeed, official sources say there is
a possibility that an India-Myanmar
counterinsurgency-cooperation project could shift
from independent tactics to joint operations on
Myanmar's territory. New Delhi believes that
insurgent groups in India's northeast derive
support from Myanmar rebel groups.
Apart
from terror strikes, Indian insurgents have been
running kidnapping and extortion rackets in
northeastern states such as Nagaland, Assam and
Manipur. Recently, a kidnapped senior official of
an oil company was killed in crossfire between the
police and United Liberation Front of Asom
militants in Assam.
Recently, India's
Ministry of External Affairs scolded the Petroleum
Ministry and its Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL)
for failing to secure the Myanmar government's
initial offer of gas from two offshore blocks
where two Indian state-owned companies hold 30%
equity. At a recent meeting called by the Prime
Minister's Office, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar
Menon said the Oil Ministry and GAIL did not make
"concerted efforts" and did not act on a letter of
intent from Myanmar issued in February 2004.
Meanwhile, irked by the delays in
implementing the Myanmar-Bangladesh-India pipeline
and buoyed by China's strategic support at
international forums, Myanmar recently signed a
memorandum of understanding with PetroChina to
supply 6.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas from
Block A of the Shwe gas fields in the Bay of
Bengal for more than 30 years.
The
decision came as a major blow to India's bid to
tap gas from its eastern front. Myanmar's gas
resources were estimated at 18tcf in 2005. Myanmar
and China have also agreed on a project to build a
pipeline to transfer oil to southern China.
GAIL has also been looking to exit from
the A-1 and A-3 blocks in the Rakhine Offshore
area over what it claims has been the "difficult"
attitude of the Myanmar government toward India's
attempts to secure gas. India's largest explorer,
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), also holds a
stake.
Indeed, the thinking in New Delhi
seems to be that India, beyond just the economics
of buying gas, will have to extend strategic
support to Myanmar to stand a chance to outwit
China. Official Indian delegations have visited
Yangon periodically to convey New Delhi's
concerns.
With a pipeline through
Bangladesh more or less ruled out because of the
intransigent attitude of Dhaka over trade issues
and domestic problems in the country, the only
other options are to avoid Myanmar by building a
longer, more expensive pipeline or to use ships to
transport the gas.
Indian intelligence
agencies cautioned New Delhi this year about the
possible shutting out of Indian interests in
Myanmar by Russian and Chinese oil firms. The
agencies argued that the decision by oil-savvy
Russia and China to veto a US-led move in the
United Nations Security Council to address the
Myanmar junta's human-rights violations was a
critical move in the evolving relationship with
Russian and Chinese companies now in the Southeast
Asian country.
Now it is apparent that
India is also prepared to dirty its hands over
Myanmar.
India's gas
problems This is especially true in light
of the government's recent dramatic reduction in
the estimated amount of domestic gas reserves that
were initially announced with much fanfare.
This month, ONGC and the Gujarat State
Petroleum Corp (GSPC) announced that finds at
blocks off India's east coast were much lower than
initially projected. ONGC cut its estimate of the
Krishna Godavari basin find to 2tcf from the
enormous 21tcf that was initially announced last
December. GSPC has also lowered its estimates from
the 20tcf first announced in June 2005 to 1.38tcf.
Observers have been saying for long that
the Indian government should tighten the norms for
announcing oil and gas discoveries to prevent
exploration companies from over-reporting or
drawing economic and political capital from new
finds. And, of course, the latest revised
projections cast doubt on New Delhi's recent claim
that India will be a gas-surplus nation in the
near future.
Last month, Petroleum
Minister Murli Deora announced that India would
source 1.25 million tonnes of liquefied natural
gas (LNG) from Algeria by 2009. India's Petronet
will source the gas from Sonatrach, which will add
to the supplies from Qatar. ONGC has also kicked
off negotiations with the ExxonMobil consortium
for importing 8 million tonnes of LNG from the
Sakhalin gas fields in Russia.
India, Iran
and Pakistan have been trying to sort out pricing,
transit and security issues related to the US$7.5
billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. Tehran has
said that it hoped to send gas to India by 2011.
However, until the deal is finally inked, there is
no certainty.
The latest twist in the
pipeline negotiations has seen India and Pakistan
saying they are opposed to the draft agreement
submitted by Tehran that would allow it to revise
the price at any time during the contract period.
Some observers add that kinks have developed in
the Indo-Iranian energy dealings because of US
pressure on New Delhi to shun Tehran on all energy
matters.
Siddharth Srivastava is
a New Delhi-based journalist.
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