A Singapore-listed company has helped supply Myanmar’s junta with oil worth over US$150 million since it seized power in a coup more than three years ago, providing fuel for the military as it carries out a brutal campaign of war crimes against civilians.

Interra Resources Ltd owns 60 percent of one of the few companies still extracting oil from Myanmar’s onshore fields, in a partnership with a subsidiary of one of China’s largest arms manufacturers, China North Industries Group Corporation (NORINCO).

Their joint venture, Goldpetrol Joint Operating Company Inc, has supplied the junta with more than 2.3 million barrels of oil since the military’s power grab in February 2021, according to data from Interra’s annual reports analysed by Finance Uncovered (FU) and the activist group Justice For Myanmar (JFM).

Interra reported earning some $55 million from its Myanmar joint venture between January 2021 — the month before the coup — and the end of 2023.

Goldpetrol’s oil was refined at a junta-controlled processing facility, which made diesel and aviation fuel to power the military’s war machine.

Thousands of people have died and more than 3.3 million people have been displaced since the junta’s grab for power, which sparked a civil war that has become one of the world’s most violent conflicts.

Military air strikes have hit schools, destroyed displacement camps and razed whole communities in what UN investigators say is an intensifying campaign of war crimes and crimes against humanity. These have deliberately targeted civilians as part of a strategy to cut off support for armed groups that are fighting the state.

Myanmar’s junta carried out 820 airstrikes between May and August last year — an average of seven a day — killing 455 civilians and injuring hundreds more, according to data from political research NGO Nyan Lynn Thint Analytica.

In a bid to stop the bombardments, the European Union, US, UK and others have imposed sanctions on people and companies that sell the junta aviation fuel.

As a Singapore-based company, Interra is not subject to these sanctions. However, facing global criticism, the city state has sought to stem the flow of arms to Myanmar through its territory, while the stock exchange where Interra’s shares are listed has brought in rules allowing it to suspend companies that violate international sanctions.

Goldpetrol, which operates two of the largest onshore oil fields in Myanmar, is one of the few remaining domestic sources of oil that the military can refine into jet fuel. John Sifton, the head of Asia advocacy for Human Rights Watch, said any company that was “working in joint enterprise with a military known for such brutality” warranted scrutiny.

He highlighted FU and JFM’s findings that Goldpetrol’s oil is being sent to a junta-controlled refinery, which could be seen as undermining international sanctions aimed at starving the military of aviation fuel.

“Ensuring that existing sanctions are restricting support and funding to the Myanmar military and impeding its capacities to make military purchases and procure military supplies … is essential to limiting its ongoing atrocities,” he said.

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

“Goldpetrol is obliged to sell all the oil produced to the host government,” an Interra spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding that the company had “complied with the applicable ESG [environmental, social and governance] requirements”.

As well as providing fuel for the military, fossil fuels are also the top source of foreign earnings for the cash-strapped junta. Authorities claim they made more than US$2 billion in profits from gas exports alone between April and December 2023, despite many major western energy companies withdrawing from Myanmar in the wake of the coup.

The military uses these profits to import weapons for its campaign of atrocities against its own people. Previous investigations by JFM found that NORINCO, the parent company of Interra’s joint venture partner, has sold the junta millions of dollars’ worth of arms, including armoured personnel carriers and heavy weapons.

NORINCO did not respond to requests for comment.

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

Close relationship

Goldpetrol has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Myanmar military. The company signed its first production contracts in 1996 with the previous junta, which ruled for decades with an iron fist, and agreed a further 11-year deal in 2017.

Under the current contract, Goldpetrol supplies all of its oil to the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), a key arm of the military-controlled energy ministry that is sanctioned by the US and EU.

MOGE takes just under 40 percent of the oil as payment to operate in Myanmar, then more to cover costs and as taxes and royalties. Altogether, that means that more than half of Goldpetrol’s oil goes to the junta before the company receives any compensation in cash.

Data from Interra’s annual reports shows Goldpetrol extracted more than 2.3 million barrels of oil, worth an estimated $152 million, between January 2021 and the end of 2023.

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

Interra did not comment on JFM and FU’s calculations, but said its contract with MOGE was in line with production-sharing agreements struck by other oil companies in other countries.

According to a leaked document provided by transparency non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, MOGE paid Goldpetrol more than US$11 million through the Myanma Foreign Trade Bank (MFTB) between February and May 2022. The US sanctioned MFTB 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”.

At least some of the profits from Goldpetrol’s oil have allegedly gone to line the pockets of the military’s top brass and fund their so-called “vanity projects”.

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

MOGE did not respond to a request for comment.

Conflict zone

Goldpetrol’s onshore oil fields, Chauk and Yenangyaung, are two of the largest in the country, covering more than 1,800 km squared of the central region of Magway. Home to the ancient temples of Bagan, which once drew tourists from around the world, the area is now the scene of fierce clashes between the military and resistance groups fighting the junta.

“Most bilateral fighting occurred in Rakhine, Sagaing and Magway regions,” according to an analysis of the ongoing conflict published by Nyan Lynn Thint Analytica in late 2024.

Yet the ongoing violence has had little impact on Goldpetrol’s operations. Production was suspended for two months after fighting erupted in the wake of the coup, but output has since resumed.

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.

Interra denied its joint venture’s oil fields had received any military protection. “Goldpetrol has no dealings with the Myanmar military,” said a spokesperson.

Goldpetrol’s production looks set to continue as Myanmar’s civil war rages on. As of the end of last year, Interra 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 $993.9 million.

Fuelling the military’s campaign

Once extracted, MOGE transferred Goldpetrol’s oil to another military-run division of the energy ministry, the Myanma Petrochemical Enterprise (MPE), which controls the country's oil refining facilities. Unlike MOGE, it has not been internationally sanctioned.

According to a 2020 report by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative watchdog — the only one it published before the junta seized power — all of Goldpetrol’s oil was processed in the “Thanbayarkan” or “Mann" petrochemical complex for domestic use. One of three junta-controlled refineries in the country, Mann, in Magway, is the only processing facility that has ramped up production since the coup.

A source with knowledge of the operations said Goldpetrol’s oil is transported down the Ayeyarwady River by boat, in an area covered in state-run weapons factories known as KaPaSa. At the refinery, crude oil is processed into an array of products, including gasoline, high-speed diesel and aviation fuel.

The source, and another with knowledge of the industry, said the fuel is distributed to military bases and government departments, and anything left over is auctioned off to private companies.

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

Myanmar’s military has been scrambling to find enough fuel to power its war machine. After investigations by Amnesty International, JFM and others exposed the people and companies supplying the junta with aviation fuel, the US, UK, EU and others imposed sanctions on those involved in the trade.

With supply lines hampered and imports of jet fuel increasingly unaffordable for the junta following a precipitous currency collapse, the generals have instead tried to increase domestic production. Built in 1982, the Mann refinery is small by international standards, but its output appears to have significantly increased since the coup.

Analysis by an industry expert of light emitted by Mann and the nearby military compound shows that — bar a brief pause in the wake of the coup attempt — nighttime activity in the refinery increased “significantly” after February 2021. Its lights shone brighter than at any point on record early 2023 before they went dark in the middle of the year.

“There is strong evidence of a surge in night time activity at the petrochemical complex, which is not directly caused by increased activity within the military compound,” concluded the analysis.

At least some of this activity has been devoted to refining jet fuel. According to Myanmar’s national statistics agency, domestic production was 174 percent higher in the first quarter of 2022 than a year earlier, with output reaching 2 million gallons in 2021-2022.

“It is the refinery that concerned governments should be … worried about, and the benefits the military gets from it,” said Sifton, from HRW.

“The most important goal for outside governments is to cut sources of funding to the Myanmar military, restrict its capacity to commit atrocities and other abuses, by limiting its access to weapons, fuel, and military equipment.”

MPE did not respond to a request for comment.

Pressure on Singapore stock exchange

Interra’s shares are listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, which previously took action against another company that JFM and FU showed had commercial ties with sanctioned organs of the Myanmar military.

In 2021, Emerging Towns and Cities’ shares stopped trading after JFM showed its Yangon property development was paying rent to the Myanmar army. In an analysis of the legal implications, Australian lawyers Felicity Gerry KC and Daye Gang argued Singapore had an obligation to prevent its companies from benefitting the junta.

“Financial markets are at the core of ensuring corporate integrity and responsibility for human rights abuses,” they wrote in a memo.

SGX did not respond to a request for comment.

Tycoons and fast cars

At Interra’s helm has been Marcel Han Liong Tjia, who served as the company’s CEO for 15 years until 2023, when he changed title to executive director. Annual reports show he also sits on the board of several Interra subsidiaries, including Goldpetrol.

Based in Singapore, Tjia has a penchant for fast cars and has competed in races across Asia, including the Porsche Carrera Cup, Asian Formula Renault and Clio Cup China.

He is the cousin of Edwin Soeryadjaya, one of the richest tycoons in Indonesia. Worth an estimated $1.6 billion, Soeryadjaya is credited with rebuilding his family’s fortunes after his father was forced to sell off his stake in the vast automotive conglomerate he founded.

Soeryadjaya spent years as the chairman of Interra’s 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 deputy governor of Jakarta and the country’s minister of tourism and creative economy, who previously spent more than a decade on Interra’s board.

Interra’s ownership changed in 2023, when Saratoga sold all its shares to another of Soeryadjaya’s long-term business associates, Singaporean lawyer Ng Soon Kai. In one fell swoop, 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’s chairman after almost two decades working beside him on the company’s board.

Interra denied that Ng was acting for Soeryadjaya, saying his appointment as chairman last year was part of a strategy to “diversify its business into other areas including renewable energy, outside of Myanmar”.

“The Board has a formal and transparent process for the appointment and re-appointment of directors,” said a spokesperson.

Tjia, Soeryadjaya, Ng and Uno did not respond to requests for comment.

* Main image: Junta attack of Kinma village, Magway (Source: Myanmar Now)
* Editing: Nick Mathiason & Ted Jeory