The spectre of severe environmental and ecological imbalance, forced labour and displacement of villagers, looms over Karen State and Taninsarim Division with the construction of the third Thai-Burmese gas pipeline to begin soon.
An engineer close to Thailand's PTTEP said construction of the new gas pipeline is expected to begin in the coming dry season. The pipeline will transport natural gas from the newly discovered gas project in M-9 block in Mattaban Gulf of Burma to Thailand.
But a Rangoon-based observer said there would be hundreds of thousands of villagers who will be displaced again and there will be massive deforestation along with pronounced forced labour to pave the way for the construction of the new pipeline.
"Like in similar infrastructure developments done earlier, the military government and interested partners such as the Thai state-own PTTEP are committing horrific human rights abuses on the population," said the observer, who requested anonymity.
The 65-kilometre new pipeline is being built along the two existing Yadana and Yetagun gas pipelines.
The proposed natural gas pipeline will carry 300 mmcfd, of which 240 mmcfd will be transported to Thailand and the rest 60 mmcfd will be for domestic consumption, according to a PTTEP announcement released during the end of July.
The observer's concerns echoes human rights activist's claims of rampant human rights abuses including forced labour, forced relocation and environmental devastation on earlier pipelines sites constructed to export gas from the Yadana and Yetagun gas fields.
The M-9 block, located about 300 kilometres south of Rangoon, is one of Burma's latest discovery of natural gas reserves by the PTTEP in early 2007.
The company is expected to spend about US$1 billion to develop the M-9 gas field and will begin production in 2011 or 2012 for both domestic use and export to Thailand.
PTTEP is also the operator and sole shareholder of five potential offshore oil and gas blocks in Burma's M3, M4, M7, M9 and M11, which are all located in the Gulf of Mattaban.
PTTEP is currently buying about 1,000 million cubic feet of gas a day (mmcfd) from Myanmar's Yadana and Yetagun gas field along pipelines to Thailand.
According to data from the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, Myanmar exported natural gas valued at US$ 2.56 billion in the fiscal year 2007-2008, which ended on March 31. Gas sales were the single largest source of foreign exchange for the military regime.
