Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – China beat India, winning the rights to buy natural gas from Myanmar's biggest field—estimated to be around 218 billion cubic metres.

Kim Sang Ook, director at Daewoo International's public relations department, which has a 60 per cent stake in the field, said his company and the government of Myanmar have accepted the basic principles of an agreement. Now a route has to be chosen and the gas pipeline built. Once completed, it will carry an estimated 80 million cubic metres of gas a day.

Myanmar’s estimated gas reserves stand at 538 billion cubic metres and China, India, Thailand, Japan and South Korea are all vying for a share.

Despite a crackdown on protests by Buddhist monks and ordinary Burmese, foreign competition for gas supplies has gone on unabated.

Human Rights Watch re9ports that in 2006 the junta earned US$ 2.16 billion from gas sales, especially to Thailand, revenue that represents about 50 per cent of the country’s total exports.

China is Myanmar's closest ally and one of its biggest trading partners. As a permanent, veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, its support is essential for any international effort to bring about change in the South-East Asian country. But for China what happens in Myanmar is strictly a domestic affair.

In 2006 China consumed 600 billion cubic metres of gas, but Indian demand for gas is growing rapidly. It is estimated that it will reach 396 billion cubic metres per day.