PTT may see less gas supply from Myanmar

Nuttachat Charuchinda, chief operating officer of PTT’s upstream petroleum and gas business group, said yesterday that PTT’s natural gas supplier from the Yetagun gas field – an offshore gas field in the Andaman Sea – is requesting to lower the daily contract quantity of the natural gas supply from the existing contracted amount of 400 million cu ft a day. For over a year, the volume of supply has been 250 million cu ft per day, which is lower than the contracted amount.
Petronas of Malaysia owns 56.67 per cent in Yetagun field, while Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise owns 15 per cent, and Nippon Oil and PTT Exploration and Production 14.17 per cent each. The natural gas from Yetagun has a high thermal value. It requires mixing with natural gas from the Yadana field, which has low thermal value, to meet the specifications of the Ratchaburi power plant.
The reduction in Yetagun gas would normally lead to lower demand for Yadana gas, but natural gas from the Zawtika field, which has a higher thermal value than the natural gas from Yadana, could help lessen the potential adverse impact.
One solution is to request for Myanmar to accept the remaining natural gas from Yadana and boost the volume of natural gas from the Zawtika field to minimise the drop in natural gas supply from Myanmar.

Master plan
PTT has contracted to receive about 560 million cubic feet per day of natural gas from Yadana, 400 million from Yetagun and 240 million from the Zawtika gas field, for a total of 1.20 billion cu. ft. / day. However, the actual volume of natural gas received from Myanmar is less than the contracted volume due to the supply problem from the Yetagun gas field.
PTT has made preparations to deal with the problem of natural gas supply from Yetagun and Yadana gas fields, the contracts for which will expire in 10 years, leaving the Zawtika gas field as the only remaining source of natural gas in Myanmar.
PTT plans to install an FSRU (floating storage and re-gasification unit) to store LNG at the gas shipping port terminal where it will be transformed from liquid state into gas form, delivered via a gas transmission pipeline into Myanmar, compared to the past when LNG was stored in a depot located on land.
The FSRU is less costly than land and LNG depot, can be set up in a shorter period of time and commence operation within the next four to five years, Nuttachat said.