YANGON, May 3 (Reuters) - Myanmar has awarded contracts tointernational oil majors Statoil and ConocoPhillips for oil and gas exploration in a deepwater offshoreblock, the official Kyemon Daily said on Sunday.
The Myanmar newspaper said the two companies' regionalsubsidiaries - Singapore-registered Statoil Myanmar Private Ltdand ConocoPhillips Myanmar E&P Pte. Ltd. - agreed to invest$323 million in oil and gas exploration in Deepsea Block AD.10,off Myanmar's western Rakhine coast.
Under the contracts, signed last week, production sharingagreements would span eight years. The companies will have toundertake environmental impact studies first, the newspapersaid.
Last year, Myanmar awarded exploration rights to the twocompanies, as well as to Royal Dutch Shell and Total, for 10 shallow-water blocks and 10 deepwater blocks.
During the fiscal year that ended in March, Myanmarattracted foreign direct investment totalling $8 billion, ofwhich more than 35 percent was generated by the energy sector,according data released by Myanmar Investment Commission.
Myanmar has targeted raising $6 billion through FDI duringthe current fiscal year. (Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)