New report details Singapore firm’s role in supplying fuel to Myanmar military

An entity majority-owned by a Singaporean company has kept Myanmar’s military regime provisioned with fuel oil despite Singapore’s policy against supplying arms or military equipment to Myanmar, according to a report released this week. The investigative monitoring organisation Justice For Myanmar (JFM) reported on Wednesday that the Singapore-based Interra Resources owns 60 percent of the shares in the joint venture Goldpetrol, a firm that has supplied more than two million barrels of oil to the military-owned fossil fuel giant Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). Working from public information and leaked financial records, JFM researchers established that, in accordance with its contract with MOGE, Goldpetrol provided petroleum valued at more than US $150 million to the military-owned conglomerate between 2021 and 2023. JFM’s investigations also identified Interra Resources’ owners. Since 2023, the firm’s shareholders have included politically connected individuals in Indonesia as well as subsidiaries of the Chinese state-owned entity NORINCO, an arms supplier to the Myanmar military and a joint owner of copper mining projects with a military-owned holding company, according to JFM. The military is especially dependent on domestic oil production to fuel its vehicles, including the aircraft it frequently deploys in indiscriminate airstrikes. The JFM report cites a rise of more than 170 percent in Myanmar’s domestic aviation fuel production between the military coup of February 2021 and first quarter of 2022. JFM’s investigations also found that crude oil extracted from the onshore oil fields in Magway Region, where Goldpetrol operates, went directly to refineries run by Myanma Petrochemical Enterprise (MPE), which refines and distributes domestically produced petroleum in Myanmar. These included a refinery capable of producing aviation fuel and located near a junta airbase and military-owned armaments factory. However, when contacted by JFM, Goldpetrol claimed to have “no dealings” with the MPE. Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military regime has relied increasingly on domestic suppliers like Goldpetrol because of foreign sanctions and embargoes as well as the dwindling value of Myanmar’s national currency. Questions about whether the junta was sourcing aviation fuel from foreign suppliers drew the international community’s attention following indiscriminate airstrikes in Hpakant and Pa Zi Gyi, among the deadliest atrocities committed by the regime to date.Sanctions imposed by various foreign governments since then have often targeted companies supplying jet fuel to the junta. However, while Goldpetrol is based in Myanmar, its majority ownership by a Singaporean company, among other connections, raise questions about the effective enforcement of international embargoes and sanctions. Goldpetrol’s contractual partner MOGE is sanctioned by the European Union (EU) and subject to financial services sanctions in the United States (US).The company also received more than US $11 million from MOGE between February and May 2022 via the Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB), which has also been sanctioned by the US government since June 2023, along with another regime-owned institution, the Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB). In announcing the sanctions on the MFTB and MICB, the US Treasury Department cited their enablement of foreign currency exchanges, which gave “revenue-generating state-owned enterprises, including MOGE, access to international markets.” Although Interra Resources is incorporated in Singapore and therefore not bound by these sanctions, Singapore ostensibly suspended the sale or transfer to Myanmar of arms and “dual-use” items—goods not classified as munitions or weapons that can be put to a military use—a few months after the February 2021 coup. In May of that year, Singapore joined four other countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in voting for a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution that called for suspending the supply of all arms and dual-use technologies to Myanmar. However, a 2023 UN report documenting more than US $1bn dollars in transfers of arms, arms components, and dual-use equipment to Myanmar found that Singaporean suppliers were responsible for a quarter of them. Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, remarked that “arms dealers operating out of Singapore are critical to the continued operation of the Myanmar military’s deadly weapons factories” in a statement accompanying the report’s release. At the time, the report omitted the names and identifying details of Singaporean firms found to be facilitating arms transfers to Myanmar, deferring to Singaporean authorities to investigate entities in breach of its embargo policy. Along with other organisations opposed to military rule in Myanmar, JFM has long criticised international businesses’ failures of due diligence and the insufficiency of existing sanctions regimes targeting the Myanmar military regime. Noting that these weaknesses have allowed the junta to continue sourcing funds, arms, and crucial resources from abroad, JFM concluded the report by calling for better enforcement of existing arms embargoes and expanded, comprehensive sanctions regimes targeting entities like MOGE and MPE.

New report details Singapore firm’s role in supplying fuel to Myanmar military

Drawing on leaked financial records, the monitoring group Justice For Myanmar (JFM) traced the fuel supplier Goldpetrol’s links to the Singapore-based Interra Resources and its politically exposed shareholders

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