Chevron puts Myanmar assets worth $1.3bn up for sale amid sliding oil prices

Chevron Corporation is exiting all of its Myanmar assets. The American energy company has decided to sell all of its Myanmar gas block stakes, which is estimated to have a combined valuation of $1.3bn (£917m, €1.15bn).

Its assets in the country include a 28.3% ownership in the Yadana and Sein gas fields and a 99% stake in exploration Block A5 in the Rakhine Basin. While the former is operated by French company Total SA in the Andaman Sea and primarily supplies to the power plants in Thailand, the latter is an area where Woodside Petroleum, an Australian petroleum exploration, has recently discovered gas.

Apart from these stakes, Chevron owns a stake in a pipeline company that transports the gas to the Thai border. The net daily natural gas production of the American company in Myanmar in 2015 averaged 117 million cubic feet.

Sources familiar with the subject told Reuters that Chevron has already started working with an American investment bank with regards to this potential sale. The sale if it were to go through would be its biggest deal in history with regards to Myanmar assets.

The move comes as Chevron plans to save cash by pulling out of non-core assets amid the ongoing oil crisis, which has seen prices of the commodity decline by more than half since June 2014. This also follows failed talks among oil producing nations in Doha on 17 April.

About 18 oil producing nations, including Opec members such as Saudi Arabia, and non-Opec countries like Russia, met in the Qatari capital to strike a deal on capping output at January levels for a six-month period to boost depressed prices. However, the talks broke down after Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, wanted its arch-rival Iran also to participate in the freeze.

While the California-headquartered company has been operating in Myanmar for about 20 years, the move to pull out is being looked as setting the tone for future deals in the country, which after its 2015 landmark elections is seeming to be more open for business opportunities.