Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Anche l'India non ha problemi con la junta birmana

Come Cina, Russia, Corea del Sud, Francia (dove perň Sarkozy ha avuto un 
accenno di reazione), Indonesia.
Namib
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http://www.irrawaddy.org/news/news_sept29_01.php
Firms Seek Access to Burma Oil Fields Despite Bloody Crackdown
By Thomas Hogue/AP Writer/Bangkok
September 29, 2007-Just last Sunday-when marches led by Buddhist monks drew
thousands in Burma's biggest cities-Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in
the country's capital for the signing of oil and gas exploration contracts
between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd and Burma's military rulers.
The signing ceremony was an example of how important Burma's oil and gas
resources have become in an energy-hungry world. Even as Burma's military
junta intensifies its crackdown on pro-democracy protests, oil companies are
jostling for access to the country's largely untapped natural gas and oil
fields that activists say are funding a repressive regime.
China-Burma's staunchest diplomatic protector and largest trading partner-is
particularly keen on investing in the country because of its strategic
location for pipelines to feed the Chinese economy's growing thirst for oil
and gas.
Companies from South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere also are looking to
exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian
country.
France's Total SA and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas,
currently pump gas from fields off Burma's coast through a pipeline to
Thailand, which takes 90 percent of Burma's gas output, according to
Thailand's PTT Exploration & Production PLC.
But investing in Burma has brought accusations that petroleum corporations
offer economic support to the country's repressive junta, and in some cases
are complicit in human rights abuses. This week's bloody clampdowns on
protests have escalated the activists' calls for energy companies to pull
out of the country.
"They are funding the dictatorship," said Marco Simons, US legal director at
EarthRights International, an environmental and human rights group with
offices in Thailand and Washington. "The oil and gas companies have been one
of the major industries keeping the regime in power."
Demonstrations that started a month ago over a spike in fuel prices have
become a broader protest against the military rulers. Ten people were killed
in two days of violence this week. Soldiers fired automatic weapons into a
crowd of demonstrators in Rangoon on Thursday and occupied Buddhist
monasteries and cut public Internet access Friday. The moves raised concerns
the crackdown on civilians was set to intensify.
Burma's proven gas reserves were 19 trillion cubic feet at the end of 2006,
according to BP PLC's World Review of Statistics. While that's only about
0.3 percent of the world's total reserves, at current production rates and
Thailand's contract price for gas, the deposits are worth almost $2 billion
a year in sales over the next 40 years.
"It points to the potential that Myanmar [Burma] has," said Kang Wu, a
fellow at the University of Hawaii's East-West Center in Honolulu.
Altogether, nine foreign oil companies are involved in 16 onshore blocks
exploring for oil, enhancing recovery from older fields, or trying to
reactivate fields where production has been suspended, according to Total's
Web site. A block is an area onshore or offshore in which an oil company is
granted exploratory and discovery rights.
Offshore, nine companies, including Total, Petronas, PTTEP, South Korea's
Daewoo International Corp, Chinese state-run companies China National
Offshore Oil Corp, or CNOOC, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or
Sinopec, are exploring or developing 29 blocks, Total said.
Despite economic sanctions against Burma by the United States and the
European Union, Total continues to operate the Yadana gas field, and Chevron
Corp has a 28 percent stake through its takeover of Unocal. Existing
investments were exempt from the investment ban.
Both Total and Chevron broadly defended their business in the nation.
"Far from solving Myanmar's problems, a forced withdrawal would only lead to
our replacement by other operators probably less committed to the ethical
principles guiding all our initiatives," Jean-Francois Lassalle, vice
president of public affairs for Total Exploration & Production, said this
week in a statement.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged Total this week to refrain from new
investment in Burma; the French concern said it had not made any capital
expenditure there since 1998.
Chevron's interest in the Yadana project is "a long-term commitment that
helps meet the critical energy needs of millions in people in the region,"
said Nicole Hodgson, corporate media adviser for Asia.
Total and former partner Unocal Corp were accused of cooperating with the
military in human rights violations while a pipeline was being built across
Burma to Thailand in the 1990s. Both companies have denied the accusations
but Unocal settled a related lawsuit in the US in 2005, prior to being
acquired by Chevron.
Always worried that instability on its border could affect the juggernaut
Chinese economy, Beijing has been gently urging Burma's leaders to ease the
recent strife. On Thursday, it issued a plea for calm, asking the government
to "properly deal" with the conflict.
"The Chinese prefer to separate business and politics," said Kuen-Wook Paik,
an energy analyst at Chatham House, a think tank in London. "They want to
take a neutral stance. They don't want to risk the relationship with the
Myanmar authorities."
But China's chief interest, analysts say, may lie in its strategic location
as a site for pipelines to move oil and gas shipped from the Middle East to
southern China, avoiding the Malacca Straits, which Beijing worries could be
closed off by the US Navy in a conflict.
By building a pipeline, "you start stitching together a crisis management
capability," said William Overholt, director of the Center for Asia Pacific
Policy at RAND Corp, an American think tank.
Beyond interests in exploration blocks in the Bay of Bengal off Burma, India
also plans to build a pipeline to eastern India, but disagreements with
Bangladesh have delayed the plans.
India is not facing any diplomatic pressure to reduce investment in the
country, said R S Sharma, chairman of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas
Corp.
"There is a trade-off between the two: That is a moralistic position and
these strategic interests," said Muchkund Dubey, president of the Council
for Social Development, a New Delhi think tank, and the former top
bureaucrat at India's Foreign Ministry.
Thailand's PTTEP, a partner in Total's Yadana and Petronas' Yetagun gas
projects, said in a statement that production of natural gas is at the
normal rate, and should not be affected by the unrest.
"It is business as usual," said Sidhichai Jayamt, the company's manager for
external relations. "When we have a contract with the government, it doesn't
really matter who the government is."

avuto un accenno di reazione), Indonesia.
Ah.... Beh.... Se lo dice il prode Namib allora.....!!! :)
*LOL*
-Stefano