Since the Myanmar military’s illegal coup attempt, a Singapore-listed company has helped supply the junta with over two million barrels of oil, fuelling its ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The oil is worth over $150 million.

Singapore-based Interra Resources Ltd owns 60 percent of one of the few companies still extracting oil from Myanmar’s onshore fields, Goldpetrol Joint Operating Company Inc. The other 40 percent is owned by North Petroleum International Co. Ltd. North Petroleum International is a subsidiary of China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO), a Chinese state-owned arms conglomerate that also supplies the Myanmar military with weapons.

Goldpetrol provided the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) with more than 2.3 million barrels of oil from January 2021 to the end of 2023, according to data from Interra Resources’ annual reports analysed by Justice For Myanmar and the UK-based journalism organisation Finance Uncovered.

In the same period, Interra Resources reported more than $55 million in revenues from Myanmar, according to the data.

MOGE provides the junta with its single-biggest source of foreign revenue through the sale of fossil fuels, and is sanctioned by the EU and USA.

Another state-owned enterprise, Myanma Petrochemical Enterprise (MPE), controls the downstream petroleum sector and has responsibility for the refining, storage and distribution of domestically extracted oil.

The Myanmar military illegally seized control of MOGE and MPE through its February 2021 coup attempt, in which it took over the energy ministry that oversees them and appointed ministers and managing directors, ensuring the needs of the junta are served.

Since the 2021 coup attempt, junta shelling and air strikes have killed children, hit schools, displacement camps and civilian infrastructure and destroyed whole communities in an intensifying campaign of terror. Goldpetrol is one of the junta’s few remaining domestic sources of oil that it can refine into jet fuel and diesel, which it needs to power its military aircraft, trucks and tanks. This domestic supply of fuel is particularly important for the junta as it faces a fuel shortage, has dwindling access to foreign currency reserves and is hampered by international sanctions on junta banks.

While Western governments have imposed targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military and its business interests, there has been a lack of coordination and sanctions have failed to target whole networks. MOGE is subject to sanctions by the EU and a financial services directive by the USA, but has yet to be fully sanctioned by the USA, or sanctioned by Australia, Canada and the UK. Junta-controlled banks Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB) have only been sanctioned by Australia, Canada and the USA. MPE has yet to be sanctioned in any jurisdiction.

Justice For Myanmar calls on these governments to coordinate targeted sanctions on MOGE, MPE and junta-controlled banks.

Singapore has yet to impose any sanctions on the Myanmar junta, and must now take action to block the junta’s access to funds, arms and jet fuel.

The Singapore Stock Exchange should take regulatory actions against Interra Resources for its continued business with MOGE and its complicity in the junta’s international crimes through the supply of crude oil.

Justice For Myanmar calls on Interra Resources to immediately halt the supply of oil to the military junta.

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Interra said Goldpetrol's contract with MOGE meant it is "obliged to sell all the oil produced to the host government.”

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Favouring the junta

Goldpetrol has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Myanmar military. The company signed its first production contracts in 1996 with the previous military junta, and agreed to another 11-year deal in 2017.  

An analysis of Interra Resources’ publicly available annual reports and leaked Goldpetrol financial statements released by Distributed Denial of Secrets sheds light on the terms of Goldpetrol’s confidential Improved Petroleum Recovery (IPR) contract with MOGE, which is the designated holder of oil and gas reserves in Myanmar.

All oil extracted by Goldpetrol goes to MOGE. Under the contract, the baseline payment covers the most significant portion of the oil that MOGE receives. From 2021 to 2023, the baseline payment for the Chauk and Yenangyaung oil fields was 39% of total production, in the form of crude oil.

The remaining 61% of oil produced was Goldpetrol’s shareable production, from which the junta took taxes, royalties, domestic market obligation and signature bonus. Combined, that meant the junta received more than half of the total oil Goldpetrol extracts as payment through MOGE, then paid the company back in cash for the rest.

Most of Goldpetrol’s profits since the coup attempt were generated in 2022 — as the military ramped up its campaign of terror — when the value of its production reached more than $67 million, due mainly to a surge in international oil prices.

According to leaked financial documents, MOGE paid Goldpetrol more than $11 million through the junta-controlled MFTB bank between February and May 2022. The USA sanctioned MFTB and MICB in June 2023 for facilitating “the regime’s profiteering from Burma’s extractive industries” and its “use of foreign currency to procure arms and jet  fuel abroad”. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, the junta responded to sanctions by shifting transactions to the state-owned Myanma Economic Bank (MEB), which has not been sanctioned in any jurisdiction. Justice For Myanmar asked Interra Resources which bank it uses for transactions with MOGE, but the company did not respond.

At least some of the historical profits from Goldpetrol’s oil appear to have lined the pockets of military generals and funded their vanity projects.  

Despite earning billions of dollars from oil and gas, a 2008 US embassy cable published by Wikileaks claimed serious delays in the junta’s payments owed to Goldpetrol and other companies for their production. Instead, it says the generals used oil money to build a new capital — Naypyidaw — or diverted it to the generals’ personal accounts.

Goldpetrol’s onshore oil fields, Chauk and Yenangyaung, are two of the largest in Myanmar, covering more than 1,800 km squared of the central region of Magway, where the junta has continued to lose territory to People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and responded with brutal and indiscriminate aerial attacks that amount to war crimes.

The illegal coup attempt and the junta’s ongoing commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity has had little impact on Goldpetrol’s operations. Production was suspended for two months in early 2021 after the coup attempt, but the company has since ramped up output. In 2022, Goldpetrol extracted just under 855,000 barrels of oil, about 40 percent of Myanmar’s entire production for the year, according to data released by the junta.

Goldpetrol’s production looks set to continue as the junta’s campaign of terror continues. As of the end of 2023, Interra Resources said it had close to 3.1 million barrels of proven reserves and as much as 12.27 million barrels of “contingent resources” it could possibly access in the future. At 2024 prices, those resources would be worth $993.87 million.  

Since the military’s coup attempt, the company’s annual report shows an overall increase in revenue compared to earlier years, even when accounting for a two-month suspension following the military’s coup attempt.

In an emailed statement, Interra said Goldpetrol had continued to supply oil to MOGE after it was seized by the junta because it had to fulfil its “contractual obligations” under the terms of its production-sharing agreement.

The military’s domestic fuel supply chain

The Myanmar military has been scrambling to secure fuel for its vehicles and aircraft given the collapse of the kyat since the military’s coup attempt, dwindling foreign reserves accessible to the junta and sanctions that have targeted junta banks and its jet fuel supply chain following civil society pressure.

With supply lines hampered and fuel imports increasingly unaffordable for the junta, domestic production is important to sustain its campaign of terror.

In the oil and gas sector in Myanmar, MOGE has exclusive rights to carry out exploration and production with private contractors, like Goldpetrol. MPE is responsible for refining, processing, and distributing petroleum and petrochemical products, including gasoline, high-speed diesel, and aviation fuel.

There are three refineries under MPE in Myanmar listed on the junta’s new energy ministry website, which was launched after a restructure in 2022: No. 1 refinery in Thanlyin, Yangon, which has been closed since 2017; the No. 2 refinery in Chauk, Magway; and the Mann Thanbayarkan (TBGN) petrochemical complex also located in Magway, which continued to function after the coup attempt until at least mid-2023. The junta-controlled energy ministry states that the Mann refinery has the capacity to produce various types of fuel — including, crucially, aviation fuel.

The Mann refinery is located in an area highly strategic for the Myanmar military, along the Ayeyarwady River, between the Magway air force base and the No. 13 Tatmadaw Defense Industry facility (KaPaSa 13), a gunpowder mill unit that produces priming materials and gunpowder for explosives. Magway is the centre of the military’s domestic weapons production, which requires a significant supply of energy to operate.

According to a reliable source with knowledge of the Goldpetrol operation, the oil from Chauk and Yenangyaung fields is transported along the Ayeyarwady River to Mann refinery by boat for refining.

This is consistent with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) “Commodity Trading Report”, published in 2020, which states that all the oil produced from Chauk and Yenangyaung fields is supplied to Mann and used domestically.

Two sources with knowledge of this supply chain confirm that the primary beneficiaries of the petroleum products refined by Mann are military bases. Fuel is also supplied to government departments and excess petroleum is auctioned to private companies by the junta.

Analysis by an industry expert of light emitted by Mann and the nearby No. 13 Tatmadaw Defence Industry facility shows significant increases in night time lights from 2021 to mid-2023 at the refinery and that it stopped emitting night lights after that. The surge in night time activity was not directly caused by increased activity within the military facility.

Meanwhile at the Chauk refinery, night time analysis showed a significant decrease in activity over the same period.

That means that Mann must be the key source of a reported surge in Myanmar’s domestic production of aviation fuel since the coup. According to the junta-controlled national statistics agency, domestic aviation turbine fuel production was 174% higher in the first quarter of 2022 than a year earlier, with output reaching 2 million gallons in 2021-2022.

The oil extracted by Goldpetrol has therefore helped plug the junta’s critical fuel shortages, thereby sustaining its continuing breaches of international criminal law. The existing legal relations governing Goldpetrol’s operations must now be disrupted with the imposition of sanctions and other secondary prevention mechanisms.

Interra Resources declined to comment on the use of Goldpetrol’s oil, and stated that it “has no dealings with the MPE”.

Who is behind Interra Resources?

Interra Resources is a politically exposed company with shareholders that included a former Indonesian minister and a Chinese state-owned arms conglomerate.

Interra Resources has long been led by Marcel Han Liong Tjia, who served as the company’s CEO and executive director for 15 years until 2023, when he stepped down as CEO but remains executive director. Company disclosures show he also sits on the board of several Interra Resources subsidiaries and joint ventures. These include Goldpetrol and Goldwater, the offshore company through which Interra Resources owns Goldpetrol, which further demonstrates Interra Resources’ exercise of close control of Goldpetrol.  

Tjia is the cousin of Edwin Soeryadjaya, one of the richest tycoons in Indonesia who is worth an estimated $1.6 billion. Soeryadjaya’s business interests span energy, construction, mining and finance.  

Until 2023, Soeryadjaya spent years as the chairperson of Interra Resources’ board and one of its top investors, owning more than 10 percent of its shares. These were held through Soeryadjaya’s holding company, PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya Tbk, which controls his investments in everything from energy to infrastructure.

Saratoga is part-owned by wealthy Indonesian politician Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, a former vice governor of Jakarta and former minister of tourism and creative economy, who previously spent more than a decade as vice chairperson of Interra Resources.  

Interra Resources’ ownership changed in August 2023, when Saratoga sold all its shares to another of Soeryadjaya’s long-term business associates, Singaporean lawyer Ng Soon Kai. Through the transaction, Ng bought a fifth of Intera’s shares for close to S$5 million (US$3.7 million), making him the company’s top shareholder with a stake of nearly 27 percent.

A month later, Ng replaced Soeryadjaya as Interra Resources’ chairperson after almost two decades working beside him on the company’s board. In 2024, Ng appointed his son Alaric Ng Jing Zhong, who is also a lawyer, to the Interra Resources’ board.

Uno and Soeryadjaya continued to be minor shareholders in Interra Resources until at least June 30, 2024, according to commercially available shareholder data.

Tjia, Soeryadjaya, Ng and Uno did not respond to questions from Justice For Myanmar.

North Petroleum International Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China ZhenHua Oil Co. Ltd., which is a subsidiary of China North Industries Group (NORINCO), was a major shareholder of Interra Resources until at least September 2023, according to shareholder data, in addition to its 40% share of Goldpetrol. NORINCO is ultimately owned by the Chinese government. NORINCO is a major arms supplier of the Myanmar military and also operates copper mines with the military conglomerate Myanma Economic Holdings Limited.

A spokesperson for Interra Resources said the company had no dealings with NORINCO, which bought its interest in the Myanmar oil fields from another company.

Interra Resources’ current second-biggest shareholder at 5.7% is Poly Legend International Limited, a private Hong Kong registered company owned by Yang Peilin. Yang Peilin has ties to China ZhenHua Oil as the chairperson of Heilongjiang United Oil & Chemicals Co., Ltd. (HUOC), a Chinese commodity trading firm that claims to be a major importer of crude oil from both Russia and Southeast Asia. In 2015-16, HUOC signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China ZhenHua Oil.

The ownership structure of Interra Resources’ Myanmar business also implicates the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands in Goldpetrol's dealings with the military junta. Goldpetrol is registered in the Bahamas, and the Myanmar company is set up as a branch office. Interra Resources’ investment in Goldpetrol is channelled through the British Virgin Islands, a UK Overseas Territory, through its holding company, Goldwater Company Limited.

NORINCO and Yang Peilin did not respond to questions from Justice For Myanmar.

Interra Resources’ complicity in the junta’s international crimes

Through its joint venture company, Goldpetrol, Interra Resources provides the junta with one of its main domestic sources of crude oil. Interra Resources have continued to supply the junta as it commits war crimes and crimes against humanity with total impunity, including through indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling which depend on a steady supply of jet fuel and diesel.

According to data from Nyan Lynn Thit Analytica, in the first four months of 2024 alone, the junta committed at least 46 massacres through air and ground attacks, killing at least five civilians each time. The junta carried out 820 airstrikes between May and August last year — an average of seven a day — killing 455 civilians and injuring hundreds more. The junta’s widening campaign of terror has killed children, destroyed schools and hospitals, ravaged communities and displaced over 3.3 million people.

Under international standards on business and human rights – including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles) – all companies have a responsibility to respect human rights. These standards provide companies in the oil industry with the baseline for identifying and acting to minimise human rights risks related to their operations. The approach most compliant with respect for human rights may be the cessation of operations or responsible divestment.

To know and to show that they meet their responsibility to respect human rights, companies should identify, prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts through enhanced due diligence. When it comes to identifying and assessing human rights risks — the first step of human rights due diligence — international standards such as the UN Guiding Principles require companies to maintain a wide view of possible impacts across their full value chain, including as it relates to end-user and end-use. In practical terms, this means identifying the human rights risks related to the full range of a company’s business activities and relationships.

In the Myanmar context, companies are expected to conduct heightened due diligence because it is a known conflict situation. Ongoing reporting by the United Nations, media and civil society organisations has raised enough awareness of the situation in Myanmar to a level that companies with operations in Myanmar cannot possibly be unaware, through constructive if not actual knowledge, of their impact on the human rights of people in Myanmar. If anything, the responsible exercise of directors’ duties and management responsibilities requires directors and executives to be aware of changing conditions in their countries of operation. In Myanmar, these changing conditions include the violation of international human rights and criminal law.

Interra Resources should take immediate action to halt all ongoing business with the Myanmar military junta, in accordance with its international responsibilities. Any enhanced due diligence and assessment of human rights breaches risk will show that its operations in Myanmar directly aid and abet war crimes and crimes against humanity. Given the level of control exercised by Interra Resources over Goldpetrol, its continuing operations in Myanmar expose it to untenable legal and regulatory risks.

The Singaporean government, as a member of ASEAN, has a heightened responsibility to prevent companies and citizens in its territory from materially supporting the military junta, which prolongs and deepens the crisis in Myanmar. Singapore must do more.

Interra Resources’ shares are listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), which has its own sanctions compliance policy. SGX states: “Any imposition of sanctions could have material adverse implications to some issuers, such as financial losses in the form of potentially severe penalties, reputational damages and disruption to business operations.” SGX has previously taken regulatory actions against a company for its business with the Myanmar military. In addition to legal and regulatory risks arising across its supply chain, Interra Resources also faces a risk in its own jurisdiction that its business as usual will be interrupted by SGX, and other, regulatory action.

Through its 60 percent stake in Goldpetrol, Interra Resources has joint control of the Chauk and Yenangyaung operations in direct partnership with MOGE, which is a sanctioned entity, while Myanmar is a Sanctioned Nation according to SGX regulations. If Interra Resources has not disclosed this likely breach of existing sanctions as part of its ongoing disclosure obligations in its bid to be listed, it cannot be trusted to disclose further and other sanctions risk exposure. Its ongoing activities in Myanmar involve direct transactions with MOGE, a sanctioned entity in the EU and the USA. By permitting Interra Resources to continue to trade, the SGX risks the freeze of assets listed on it. SGX should therefore launch a regulatory investigation into Interra Resources and ensure it comprehensively ends trade with MOGE and other sanctioned entities in Myanmar.

No government has imposed sanctions on MPE, despite its critical role in the military’s fuel supply chain. While the EU has sanctioned MOGE and the USA has imposed a financial services directive, more needs to be done. Justice For Myanmar calls on governments to systematically target the junta’s sources of funds and aviation fuel, including through coordinated and targeted sanctions against MOGE, MPE and junta-controlled banks, including MFTB.