ရေနံနှင့်သဘာဝဓာတ်ငွေ့

The Oil and Gas Sector Wide Impact Assessment (SWIA) was the first SWIA undertaken by MCRB, with guidance from IHRB. A SWIA is a forward-looking assessment that aims to contribute to preventing and minimising the sector’s negative impacts as well as strengthening and improving the sector’s positive impacts. Field research took place in late 2013 and early 2014 in sites on the China/Myanmar oil and gas pipelines, in oil fields in central Myanmar, and in the area around the pipelines exporting offshore gas to Thailand in Tanintharyi Region from TOTAL/Petronas and PTTEP’s joint ventures. After consultation, the SWIA was published in September 2014.

Myanmar Oil and Gas SWIA: Complete Report (234 pages/6.4mb)

Document PDF, 11959 downloads, စက်တင်ဘာ 04, 2014

ရေနံနှင့်သဘာဝဓာတ်ငွေ့

Document PDF, 3660 downloads, စက်တင်ဘာ 04, 2015

Briefing Paper on Biodiversity, Human Rights and Business

Document PDF, 2729 downloads, နိုဝင်ဘာ 06, 2018

ဇီဝမျိုးစုံမျိုးကွဲများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနှင့် စီးပွားရေးဆိုင်ရာ အကျဉ်းချုပ်စာတမ်း

Document PDF, 2086 downloads, နိုဝင်ဘာ 06, 2018

The Oil and Gas SWIA was intended to support responsible business practices in this growing sector of Myanmar’s economy at a time when tenders for onshore and offshore oil and gas licences had brought large and small international companies into Myanmar, and provided the basis for MCRB’s guidance to companies in the sector.  

Myanmar’s legal framework for environmental and social impact assessment was nascent, and sectoral laws were outdated or non-existent. Most legal obligations placed on companies in relation to managing their adverse impacts were contained in unpublished production-sharing contracts (PSC). 

The SWIA was an opportunity to set out the legal and policy framework and analyse where it had gaps or was inconsistent with international standards including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.  It also served to kickstart individual environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) by companies who had won licences, and their service providers.

The SWIA findings and recommendations to the Myanmar government, companies, civil society, home country/development partners and investors were incorporated into advocacy.  This included advice to development partners such as Norway (also an MCRB donor) who was supporting the emergence of regulation related to oil and gas, and ESIA, as well as the IFC, ADB and others.   An Annex to the SWIA proposed changes to the model PSC to strengthen environmental, social and human rights requirements.

MCRB particularly focussed on advocacy related to public participation in ESIA processes. Findings were also incorporated into advocacy on the draft Petroleum Bill, the regulation of artisanal oil production, and well as reform of land laws, including land acquisition and resettlement.

The SWIA also took place at a time when the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) Government led by President U Thein Sein was seeking to engage with international initiatives such as the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Although Myanmar’s membership of EITI was ended in 2024, licence data from reports published between 2016 and 2020 is mapped here.

MCRB participated in discussions relating to EITI, and in 2014 published a briefing paper on CSOs and extractive industries in Myanmar to support meaningful engagement between companies and CSOs within the oil, gas and mining sector. MCRB translated the guide to operational grievance mechanisms (OGMs) published by IPIECA, the global oil and gas association focussed on environmental social standards.  In training on effective grievance mechanisms, MCRB referred to a local good practice example developed by MPRL in the Mann Oil Field.

The Oil and Gas SWIA also identified a role in Myanmar for international initiatives and standards such as the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. In 2018, an In-country Working group on the Voluntary Principles was established with MCRB as Secretariat. This resulted in collective action and dialogue on issues such as responses to interactions between offshore migrant/refugee vessels and seismic vessels and rigs, as well as dialogue on possible emerging regulation of private security companies which ultimately led to MCRB’s 2022 Baseline Assessment of Private Security Companies, which drew heavily on the work of ICoCA, the responsible security association, of which MCRB became a civil society member.

Drawing on the SWIA findings international standards, and follow-up multistakeholder discussions an Oil and Gas Sector Briefing Note was prepared as a supplement to MCRB’s series of 2018 publications on Biodiversity, Business and Human Rights.

The Conflict Chapter of the SWIA noted importance of more effective ‘benefits sharing’ for Rakhine. Given the concentration of existing and new investment expected in Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State, not only from offshore gas, but also the terminus of the pipelines, and the site of a planned deep-sea port and special economic zone (SEZ) as well as several power plants, MCRB convened several civil society and multistakeholder discussions in the area during the period 2017 to 2019.

This included facilitating discussions between Woodside, Posco and local civil society organisations in October 2019. MCRB also sought to raise understanding of local government officials about responsible business, with the aim of improving coordination and sub-national regulation. These activities were also the subject of a briefing in 2017 to the Rakhine Advisory Commission led by Kofi Annan.

In June 2018, several oil and gas companies (TOTAL, Chevron, Woodside, ENI, Shell) participated in a meeting with Myanmar Investment Commission facilitated by MCRB to highlight the role of government in protecting human rights, including those of the Rohingya. These companies (other than Shell which had by then withdrawn) also were signatories to the MCRB-facilitated Statement by Concerned Businesses Operating in Myanmar in February 2021 following the military coup.

Following the coup, most remaining oil and gas companies suspended their plans for exploration and possible investment. TOTAL, Chevron and Petronas withdrew from Myanmar over the following two years.  MCRB’s activity in the sector, including on the VPSHR, ended in February 2022. The most significant remaining company, PTTEP of Thailand, which took over TOTAL’s operations, had consistently declined to participate in MCRB activities, avoiding engagement in the original SWIA and showing no interest in the Voluntary Principles Working Group.