Rights groups urge Chevron to stop payments to Myanmar oil company

A coalition of rights groups has urged Chevron to freeze payments to Myanmar’s state-owned oil and gas company and prevent funds from flowing to the country’s military junta, which has drawn international condemnation for its coup and subsequent crackdown.

In a letter seen by the Financial Times, the campaigners asked the company not to make royalty or other payments to Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, a state-owned company. Its cash flow is now under the control of the military, which seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s government on February 1.

The dozens of signatories included watchdog group Global Witness and the US and Australia chapters of Publish What You Pay, as well as groups in Myanmar. They wrote to Chevron that money paid to MOGE was at “high risk of being misappropriated and used to fund the operations of the Myanmar military as well as the illegitimate military regime”.

“Companies should make revenue payments into protected accounts until such time as the legitimate and democratically elected government is returned,” the letter said.

The letter cited a Reuters report that stated Chevron’s participating interest in the Yadana gasfield probably generated almost $600m in payments to MOGE in 2015-19.

Campaigners in France, led by Greenpeace France, have also called for Total to suspend payments to the junta, and for Paris to impose sanctions on MOGE.

The groups’ demands echo those of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, whose deposed government last week wrote to all foreign energy companies in Myanmar calling on them to cut ties with the junta and put all payments from energy projects into “protected accounts”.

Chevron has a minority non-operating interest in the Yadana offshore gas project and a gas export pipeline, alongside a unit of Thailand’s PTT and MOGE itself, among other interests in Myanmar. Both projects are operated and part-owned by Total.

Campaigners have demanded that countries isolate businesses controlled by the regime. More than 260 protesters have been killed and more than 2,600 people jailed since the coup. Participants in a nationwide civil disobedience movement have urged strikes and international action to deprive the regime of revenue. 

“We are calling on the oil and gas companies not to pay the military junta,” a local activist from the southern city of Dawei, who has gone into hiding out of fears over the crackdown, told the FT by phone. “We mainly want the US government to put pressure on Chevron and Total to stop paying all the cash to MOGE.” 

Since the coup, US president Joe Biden’s administration has imposed sanctions on 12 military leaders, three subsidiaries of a military conglomerate and six companies controlled by two children of General Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief. A senior administration official told the FT that Washington was looking at further measures.

“The two things the military government wants are legitimacy and revenues, and foreign exchange in particular,” said Keel Dietz, Myanmar policy adviser at Global Witness. “Targeting oil and gas revenues especially through an escrow-based programme . . . denies them both things.” 

The demands will intensify the pressure on the energy companies, which say they are mindful of complying with Myanmar law and keeping their staff safe at a time of political unrest.

Total last week expressed “hopes for a peaceful solution”, condemned human rights violations and said it would comply with any US sanctions. 

The French company has also pointed out that Yadana supplies gas that powers 50 per cent of Yangon’s electricity.