Myanmar is part of mainland South East Asia. The country is bordered by China to the North and Northeast, Laos to the east, Thailand to the southeast, the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest, Bangladesh to the west, and India to the northwest. Total area of Myanmar is around 676,500 square kilometers and the population in 2018 is around 53,855,000.
Beside of agricultural products, wood products and metals, Myanmar produces precious stones such as rubies (90% of world’s rubies), sapphires, pearls and jades. In energy sector, Myanmar yield oil and natural gas, coal, unleashed hydropower resources, biomass resources, solar and wind power and potentially geothermal resources.
There are 60 rivers in Myanmar, the four (4) major rivers in Myanmar are: Ayeyarwadhy (2210 Km length), Chindwin River (900 Km length), Sittoung River (320 Km length), Thanlwin River (1224 Km length). Some of the rivers are used as hydropower plants and water transportation, and some others are being planned to be new additional hydropower sources.
Myanmar lies in the monsoon region of Asia, with three dominant seasons: The March to May hot season, the June to October wet season, and the November to February cool season. Myanmar has some hydro meteorological hazards and got rank 3 of the Long Term Climate Risk Index, because the country classified as most bad affected by the climate from 1997 to 2016, but then get off from the list in 2017.
Myanmar has plenty and colorful ethnics and cultures in Myanmar, but also that make some difficulties to make unity of the nation. The ad4ministration of the country is divided into seven states largely on the basis of ethnicity – Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine and Shan – and seven more truly administrative divisions of Myanmar proper – Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy), Magway (Magwe), Mandalay, Bago (Pegu), Sagaing, Thaninthary (Tenasserim) and Yangon.
The capital of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar is in Nay Pyi Taw. Aung San Suu Kyi – the leader of National League for Democracy won the general election in the 2015. Aung San Suun Kyi effectively leading the government in the role of the State Counsellor after this election. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, but then in 2018 she failed to speak out over violence against Rohingya. The new government has started to develop the infrastructure to connect villages with electricity power and roads to improve lives in rural areas followed by improving education, health facilities, reducing the dependence to natural resources extraction and cheap labor. With the support of finance institution, the government is promoting the public – private partnership, especially in infrastructure, to
expand telecommunication networks, power generation and support logistics that builds the foundations for inclusive and sustainable growth.
With its natural resources, Myanmar has great growth potential. It has recorded rise in annual GDP growth since 2011 by 8.4 % (in 2013), 5.9% (in 2016) and 6.8% (in 2018). Myanmar’s export sector has dominated by the sale of gas to Thailand and People Republic of China (PRC). Together with the gas, Myanmar also exported agricultural and fish products, and also precious minerals. The trend in exports appears to be steady. The imports are sourced mainly from Asia, with China (PRC) as the largest trading partner and Singapore and Thailand. The main import commodities are petroleum products, fertilizers and all terrain trucks & motor vehicles. Foreign Direct Investment is the key factor for the Myanmar’s economy growth. In FY 2007, Myanmar has attracted US$ 0.5 billion of FDI and by FY 2018-19, the FDI has been increased to US$ 5.8 billion. The biggest increases in FDI was driven by large investment at Thilawa Special Economic Zone, particularly in automotive and assembly, electronics, machinery, building materials, as well as communication equipment.
Myanmar has abundance of energy: oil and gas and renewables. The crude oil production is around 12,000 bopd which came from onshore (7,000 BOPD) and offshore (5,000 BOPD). The gas production is around 1.80 BSCFD which is 1.75 BSCFD comes from offshore. Around 75% to 80% of gas production were exported to Thailand (950 MMSCFD) and to China (400 MMSCFD), around 450 MMSCFD is used domestically for electricity (55-60%), government owned factory (20%), fertilizer plants (7.9%), CNG (7.2% and LPG (0.9%). The oil reserve is estimated at 400 million barrels, and the gas reserves is around 16,600 BCF which are probably accumulated in 17 basins – offshore and onshore. Myanmar has three (3) old refineries but only produced 50% of their design capacity. The products are naphta, gasoline, diesel, coke, LPG and wax. The total refineries production are around 22,000 boepd while the consumption is around 42,000 boepd, which the balance presently are imported.
The coal reserve in Myanmar is around 543 million metric ton and located in 16 major coal deposits along the Ayeyarwaddy and Chindwin river basin. The annual production of coal is around 400,000 Ton. The coal is used for domestic power plants and cement industries, and also some iron and nickel also briquettite. Only small amount is exported.
The renewables come from: hydropower, PV, wind, and biomass. Hydropower has potential capacity of 108 GW, PV solar potential resources is estimated around 52,000 TWh/year, The total installable capacities are nearly 71 GW at 80 meter hub height to 239 GW at 120 meter hub height.
Myanmar has agriculture as the largest industry, producing enormous quantities of waste products from producing crops, such as paddy straw, rice husk, sugarcane bagasse and palm oil residue. Annually, Myanmar produced more than 8 million tonnes of oil equivalent of biomass commodity. Therefore, Myanmar has potentially to produce electricity from biomass. However this opportunities seem have not been utilized yet, except for cooking or other purposes in rural households. Myanmar has started the waste to energy plant in
Yangon, which was commissioned in March 2017. It processes around 60 ton of trashes per day. The plant produces steam that drives 700 kW turbines. The 300 kW is used for the plant, and the rest is sold to Yangon Electricity Supply Board. As a growing country, Myanmar needs many investments especially in electricity, to provide electricity to the households which has electrification access ratio 31% in 2014 to 87% in 2030, to grow the industry.
The government faces many challenges, especially to reconcile the internal conflicts, while in the same time shall initiate wide ranges of economic, social and government reforms. But it does not close the opportunity for Myanmar to growing fast in the future.
In the report, more data will be presented in detail and more information about Myanmar mainly related to energy can be found.
