Royal Dutch Shell will start to explore three deepwater oil blocks off the coast of Myanmar in October, after opening an office in Yangon last week.
The Anglo-Dutch energy giant and Japanese partner Mitsui Oil Exploration won the blocks – off the shore of Rakhine state – after a 2013 bidding round.
They pledged to invest $1.2 billion over eight years, according to the Myanmar Times.
Two of the blocks are close to Daewoo International’s Shwe Gas project, where production started in 2013.
An official from Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise told the Times there was a “large potential that there are oil and gas reserves in the blocks.”
Graeme Smith, Royal Dutch Shell’s vice-president of exploration in Asia and Australia, told the newspaper that environmental impact assessment surveys have been completed.
The firm was involved in Myanmar during the former ruling military junta but withdrew as international sanctions increased in the 1990s.
Photo / UK Shell petrol station in London in November 2007 / Billy Hicks / Wikicommons
