China cannot send crude oil to Myanmar under bilateral contract because it lacks an oil refinery

News Desk

China cannot send crude oil to Myanmar as agreed in a contract because of the lack of an oil refinery in Myanmar, said the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.
Under the bilateral contract for the pipeline that transports oil and gas across Myanmar to China, it was required to send two million tonnes of crude oil and four million cubic metres of gas a year to Myanmar.

“As Myanmar has not yet built a refinery, China cannot send the crude oil to Myanmar as provided in the contract,” said U Kharan Naw Aung, the managing director of MOGE.

The Ministry of Electricity and Energy planned to build the refinery in Mandalay Region, he said.
The pipeline went into operation in 2013 and China had sent more than four million cubic feet of gas to Myanmar to December, 2019.

China had received 24 million cubic meters of gas from the pipeline since it began operating, shows data from the project.

The pipeline carries crude oil shipped to a terminal at Maday Island, Rakhine State, and sent to China via Namkham in northern Shan State, says a report on the project. The pipeline had transported more than 25 million tonnes of crude oil to China to December last year.