• General State of the Economy
• Energy Resources
• Energy Balance
• Energy Infrastructure
• Education and Innovation
• Ecology and Environment Protection
• References

According to 2023 statistics, Myanmar, which ranks 42^nd in the world in terms of the size of its territory, is home to around 58 million people. In terms of population density, the country occupies the 135^th place in the world. The length of the country’s coastline is 1,930 km. Myanmar is defined de jure as a parliamentary republic, de facto the country is controlled by the military junta called State Administrative Council. Myanmar is divided into 7 regions, 7 states and 1 union territory. The national capital is the city of Naypyidaw and the largest city is Yangon [1,2,3,4,5].

The rating positions of Myanmar relative to other countries have been determined for an extensive list of economic, energy, innovative and educational indices, as well as for metrics reflecting the state of the environment. The economic indices include, for example, GDP per capita, annual average GDP growth, high-technology exports, and others. The list of energy indices includes proven reserves of oil, gas and coal, production-consumption ratio combined, and energy use, etc. Each of the indices has a ranked list of included member countries. Since the number of countries in each rating is different for each index, the positioning of the country of interest is displayed on a special chart, where the vertical axis is a uniform relative scale from 0 to 1, whereas the horizontal axis denominates the various indices and respective numbers relating to the descriptions given underneath.

Thus, in such a relative “0-1” diagram, the country’s position is marked with a dot in proportion to its location in the original rating list. If the country is among the leaders regarding the selected indicator, it will be marked close to 1 in the upper green zone on the relevant chart “0-1”, if the country is an outsider in the rating list, then it will be marked in the lower red zone of the chart “0-1”, etc.

Ranking position of Myanmar for list of economic indices:

Myanmar has significant proven reserves of fossil fuels in the form of natural gas. The share of natural gas is 0.31% of the world’s total, the share of oil is 0.008%. The country's coal reserves are only 0.0006% of the world total. The share of Myanmar's population makes up about 0.7% of the world's population. However, at the same time, gas reserves in the country are significantly lower than those of the world leaders. For instance, they are about 36 times less than in Qatar and about 10 times less than in United Arab Emirates [6].
In terms of tons of oil equivalent, according to 2024 data, conventional proved reserves by fuel type were: 96.1% – natural gas, 3.2% – oil, and 0.7% – coal (Fig.5).

Table 1. Fossil energy resources of Myanmar

*share of the country’s reserves in world total is provided in brackets
**in-place resources

Hydropower plays a significant role in Myanmar’s power generation, contributing about 97% to all renewable electricity produced in 2021, followed by bioenergy (2.1%) and solar PV (0.7%). However, the country does not completely use its overall hydropower potential (140,000GWh per year [12]). Moreover, Myanmar has tremendous potential to develop renewables beyond hydropower. The solar potential of the country is estimated at 4.7-5.2 kWh/m²/day, in the central dry zone up to 5.5 kWh. Along the coast in the western part of the country and in the Tanintharyi Region there is a good potential for wind power with the wind speed reaching 6 m/s at a height of 50 m.

Table 2. Renewable energy resources of Myanmar

*for the majority of the territory of the country
**technically exploitable capability

NYAUNG-U. Country: Myanmar. Latitüde: 21.2. Longitude: 94.92
Sky cover, %



Please see details here.

YANGON INTL. Country: Myanmar. Latitiude: 16.91. Longitude: 96.13. 10 m.
Wind speed, m/s



Please see details here.

The biodiversity of Myanmar, namely the rather vast agricultural and forested area, forms a worthy resource base for the development of a number of bioenergy technologies. Today, biomass plays an important role in Myanmar's energy sector, but this area is extremely low-tech and currently uses mainly traditional methods of consuming biomass sources, such as heating and cooking, open burning, animal feed, etc.
 

According to [6], in 2022 in Myanmar, the total production of primary energy was 0.699 quadrillion Btu, while consumption was at the level of 0.501 quadrillion Btu. Thus, the share of domestic consumption in primary energy production was 71.7%. This makes Myanmar a country independent of energy imports.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Mar 2024) / www.eia.gov

Figure 2. The Production and Consumption of fossil fuels in Myanmar (left — coal, in the center — gas, right — oil)

As for the ratio of production to consumption of fossil fuels in Myanmar, the picture is contrasting. For example, oil production lags far behind demand: in 2022, oil consumption was more than eighteen times higher than production. With gas, the picture is quite the opposite: gas production is four times higher than its domestic consumption. Coal is a fossil fuel whose production and consumption are roughly at the same level, with a nearly three-fold increase in production compared to 2015.

Total electricity generation in Myanmar has grown by almost 200% over the past ten years. In 2022, approximately 58% of electricity was produced by thermal power plants and 40% – by hydroelectric power plants. Renewables also contribute to the overall balance of electricity generation, reaching a share of almost 2% in 2022. This is not a very high figure, but by comparison, in 2010 there were no renewable sources other than hydro in the total mix of electricity produced.
The volume of electricity generation in Myanmar exceeds the volume of consumption. However, it should be taken into account that only 51% of the population has access to electricity. In addition, due to the bad state of electric grids and other problems, there are large distribution losses, exceeding 3.4 billion kWh per year [3].  

A territorial map showing distribution of the largest infrastructure projects of the fossil fuel sector in Myanmar is displayed in Figure 5. As previously mentioned, natural gas reserves account for 96.1% of conventional proved reserves, oil for 3.2% and coal for 0.7% (Fig.5).

                                       Figure 5. Basic infrastructure facilities of the fossil fuel sector in Myanmar

The main gas fields under development are offshore and located in the southwestern part of Myanmar, while the main oil fields are located closer to the center of the country. Myanmar’s conventional oil infrastructure includes several refineries in operation, some oil terminals and oil storages. There is 1321 km of crude oil pipelines and 3739 km of natural gas pipelines.  Two of them, Myanmar-China Natural Gas Pipeline and the Myanmar-China Oil Pipeline, start from the West coast in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and end in China’s Yunnan region. Coal mining is carried out mainly in the center und in the south of the country.

                                       Figure 6. Electricity production and renewable energy in Myanmar

About 58% of Myanmar's electricity is generated by power plants running on fossil fuels, most of which are gas-fired. The largest gas-fired power plants are located around the bordering area of Yangon region and Mon State in the south of the country. In Yangon region is also located the 477-megawatt LNG power plant Thaketa, the first LNG-to-power commissioned in Myanmar.
Myanmar has an extensive network of hydroelectric power plants. They produce more than 40% of electricity. The largest of them is the Yeywa, is a 790MW hydroelectric power plant located in central Myanmar on the Myitnge River.
Looking at all renewable energy sources, in 2020, hydropower plants dominated the volume of electricity generated (over 97%), followed by bioenergy (2%) and solar photovoltaics (about 0.6%). The Minbu Solar Power Plant in the Mgway Region is considered to be one of the largest solar plants in Southeast Asia.
The Myanmar government's energy policy aims to ensure the country's energy independence by both increasing national production of available primary energy resources and developing renewable energy. One of the important challenges to be addressed in the country is to ensure the universal electricity supply that would be possible if the rich potential of renewable energy sources, including biomass, solar and wind, were harnessed. According to Myanmar's Energy Master Plan, the government planned for 87% electrification by 2030, although the state of things today shows that this goal will not be achieved [14].

The following chart shows Myanmar’s positions in terms of education and innovation:
 

Indicators related to environmental issues are presented in the following diagram:
 

[1] List of sovereign states and dependencies by area / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
[2] List of countries and dependencies by population density / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
[3] Myanmar / The world factbook / Library / Central Intelligence Agency / www.cia.gov
[4] GDP, PPP (constant 2011 international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[5] GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) / World Bank, International Comparison Program database. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[6] International Energy Statistic / Geography / U.S. Energy Information Administration (Dec 2022) / www.eia.gov/beta/international/
[7] 2010 Survey of Energy Resources (PDF) / 2010 / Uploads / World Energy Council / https://www.worldenergy.org/
[8] Solar resource data obtained from the Global Solar Atlas, owned by the World Bank Group and provided by Solargis / Global Solar Atlas / globalsolaratlas.info
[9] Wind Map / Global Wind Atlas 2.0, a free, web-based application developed, owned and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in partnership with the World Bank Group, utilizing data provided by Vortex, with funding provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). For additional information: globalwindatlas.info
[10] Agricultural land (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[11] Forest area (% of land area) /Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[12] Hydro (PDF) / World Energy Council / https://www.worldenergy.org/
[13] What a Waste 2012 (PDF) / Resources / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[14] Myanmar Energy Master Plan (EMP) / Asia Pacific Energy Portal / https://policy.asiapacificenergy.org/node/2923

The sources of charts and curves are specified under the images.

For more information about the energy industry in Myanmar see here