The Myanmar-China Oil and Gas Pipelines: Is Myanmar Dependable?

摘要

At long last, the Myanmar-China oil and gas pipelines are now in place, ready to pump oil and gas from a new direction to China. Told by the government that the pipelines are scheduled to come on-stream in the first half of 2014, end-users in Kunming, the capital city of China's southwestern province of Yunnan, are busy installing household-use gas facilities to embrace the new gas supply, this time from their immediate neighbor, Myanmar. Meanwhile, a network of new refineries and chemical works, believed to be a powerful locomotive for economic growth in this underdeveloped region, is nearing its completion in spite of continued protests by Chinese environmentalists. Nationwide, Chinese energy security experts hail the project as an effective reinforcement of China's existing oil and gas transportation grid that consists of the China-Central Asia gas pipeline in the northwest, the Russia-China oil pipeline in the northeast and the South China Sea maritime lanes in the southeast. As the world's No.1 energy consumer whose dependency on foreign oil and gas is running up to 60% and 30% respectively, China has every reason to be exhilarated with this new project. However, along with all these high expectations comes a crucial question: Is Myanmar a reliable transit point and a dependable supplier?