Guillaume de Langre
Myanmar’s domestic gas production is plummeting. The country’s biggest gas field, called Yadana, is nearing the end of its lifetime. According to Thai energy data, Thai imports of Yadana gas have dropped 47 percent since the military takeover of February 2021, which has plunged the country into conflict. Less gas production also means less electricity for Myanmar: generation capacity has dropped 35 percent since the coup. The depletion of Yadana has been expected for a long time, and there were plans to develop new gas reserves and renewable sources of energy to make up for it. What wasn’t expected was that the Myanmar military would seize power – a move that has broken the country’s fragile energy system. So what happens next, and how could we fix it?
First, let’s be clear: Myanmar’s energy crisis is a direct result of its political crisis. There is no energy solution without a political change. Foreign investors and local companies pulled out of the country’s energy sector because they lost confidence in the State Administration Council (SAC)’s ability to govern responsibly. This is reflected in the exchange rate: as assets were pulled out of the country, the kyat has dropped from 1,330 to the U.S. dollar on the eve of the coup to around 4,500 to the dollar today. One of the consequences for the energy sector is that importing gas from abroad to generate more electricity would now be prohibitively expensive. At this stage of the conflict, the success of any energy policy depends on a political solution.
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