Mitsubishi to invest $70 million in

[darnott@xxxxxxxxxxx]

  12Jul2000 JAPAN: M'bishi to invest $70 mln in
  Myanmar oil project. 03:08 GMT

  TOKYO, July 12 (Reuters) - Mitsubishi Corp said on Wednesday it will
  invest $70 million to build a floating storage offloading (FSO) facility 
by the
  end of this month for an offshore crude oil and natural gas development
  project in Myanmar.
  The Japanese trading house will lease the FSO facility over the next 15
  years to Britain-based oil and gas explorer Premier Oil Plc , the operator
  of the Yetagun Field in the Andaman Sea off Myanmar.
  The FSO will have capacity to handle 625,000 barrels per day (bpd) of
  oil, a Mitsubishi spokesman said.
  Production at the field started in late June, with initial production at 200
  million cubic feet per day of natural gas and 6,500 barrels per day (bpd) of
  condensate.
  Although Mitsubishi will not take an equity stake in the Yetagun field,
  Mitsubishi is in talks with producers to buy about 40 percent of the
  condensate output.
  Mitsubishi's shares ended the morning session up 13 yen or 1.37 percent at
  963 yen.

  ((Tokyo Energy Desk +81-3 5473 3708
  tokyo.energy.newsroom@xxxxxxxxxxx)).
  (C) Reuters Limited 2000.