CORRECTION: This story corrects an earlier version, ‘Oil drilling to begin in Burma’s eco-sensitive Hukaung Valley’ that was published on Tuesday, May 10.
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – A representative of the parent company of the Singapore-based Silver Wave exploration & Production PTE Ltd has clarified that Silver Wave Exploration will not drill for oil in Hukaung Valley in northern Burma, home to the world’s largest tiger reserve.
Lee Kon Lin of Silver Wave Energy PTE LTD has informed Mizzima that contrary to last week’s press release Silver Wave Exploration will not drill in Hukaung (Hugawng) Valley in Kachin state but farther south in Block B2 in Sagaing Division. A press release by Silver Wave Exploration last week stated that the joint venture firm would conduct oil and gas exploration in the ecologically sensitive Hukaung Valley which the press release incorrectly stated as block B-2. The Hukaung Valley is listed by Burma’s state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) as block PSC-A while B-2 is farther south in an area of Sagaing Division called Zebyutaung-Nandaw (also spelt Zeebyutaung).
Mizzima first reported on the press release on Tuesday after both the Singapore Business Times and the Myanmar Times also said that Silver Wave Exploration would be drilling in the Hukaung Valley.
According to the Silver Wave Exploration press release, the firm was formed recently as a joint venture between two Singaporean firms Silver Wave Energy Pte Ltd, BFI Holding Pte Ltd, and two firms from Japan, Star Field Corporation and Star Holding Corporation. BFI holdings first reported on April 18 in a press release on the firm’s Website that Silver Wave Exploration would drill in Hukaung Valley. A similar press release issued by Silver Wave Exploration last week repeated much of the same information including the apparent error about drilling in the valley.
Both the press releases from BFI holdings and Silver Wave Exploration also stated that ‘Silver Wave Exploration & Production Pte Ltd will commence drilling operations in Block B (B 2) this year at a budget of US$100 million as the initial investment’.
Silver Wave Energy Pte Ltd while based in Singapore is owned by Burmese businessman Min Min Aung (also known as Minn Minn Oung) and is part of his Silver Wave Trading group, a conglomerate known for having close ties to Burmese generals who are influential in the government.
Attempts to reach Giancarlo Tschuor, the president of BFI holdings, to inquire about the firm’s investment in Silver Wave Exploration were unsuccessful. When Mizzima called the Singapore number on the BFI Website it reached a Singapore architecture firm that provided a Libyan cell number for Tschuor. The Libyan number was disconnected. BFI holdings which describes itself as ‘a privately owned company and has been formed and incorporated in Singapore’ appears to have conducted most of its business in Libya where it was involved in several large scale projects.
According to the firm’s Website, ‘BFI is currently negotiating over 3 billion US dollars worth of projects’ which includes the ‘Urban Redevelopment’ of Tripoli, Libya’s capital. Recent political developments including a NATO bombing campaign against Colonel Gadaffi have dramatically halted almost all international business projects in Libya and likely put a damper on BFI projects in Tripoli.
Russia’s Nobel Oil and Htoo trading received rights to drill in Hukaung Valley in 2008
The exploration block that covers the Hukaung Valley PSC-A straddles both Kachin State and Sagaing Division and covers an area of about 11,041 sq. km. In September 2008, the Russian firm Nobel Holdings Investment Limited and its Burmese partner Htoo Trading Company Ltd obtained the exploration rights for the area. It remains unclear how far the firms have gone with their oil and exploration operations in the valley.
The Hukaung valley, much of it covered by an official tiger reserve, remains mired in controversy. According to the nongovernmental Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG), since 2006 the Yuzana Corporation has with the support of central government authorities expropriated more than 809 sq. km (200,000 acres) of land in the valley from local Kachin villagers.
KDNG reports that hundreds of families have been displaced by Yuzana’s land acquisition. As with many other such state-approved projects in Burma, the displaced families were not adequately compensated and many were forced to say they were moved ‘willingly’, according to activists.
Yuzana has planted large plantations of cassava root and sugar cane on the contested land including throughout the tiger reserve. Instead of hiring local people for the massive plantation farms, Yuzana has imported workers belonging to the Burman majority from the south of the country.
Reports from the area indicate that the Yuzana’s operations have created intense resentment among the remaining Kachin residents of the Hukaung Valley. The Burmese military is reportedly giving the Yuzana employees military training to deal with unhappy local residents. Yuzana is headed by Htay Myint, a real estate tycoon said to be close to Burma’s generals.
In 2001, the Burmese military regime in collaboration with the American NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) established the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. According to opposition activists, local residents were given no opportunity for input.
In 2004, the reserve’s total area expanded to include almost the entire valley of 21,890 square kilometers, creating what was heralded as the largest tiger reserve in the world. Since the reserve’s expansion, the Burmese regime has encouraged logging, gold mining, large scale farms and the building of factories inside what is supposed to be a tiger and nature reserve.
In June 2010 at the Global Tiger Summit, representative of Burma’s military government announced that they would double the Hukaung Valley’s tiger population from 50 to 100 over the next 12 years, an extremely unlikely scenario given recent developments in the valley.
Ah Nan, a spokesperson for KDNG, responded that the ‘military government’s fine words about wildlife conservation are just hot air. The tiger reserve is clearly up for sale. Investors can put money on the table. Tigers can't’.
