Daewoo International, a trading subsidiary of POSCO, announced Monday that it had successfully begun production at the Shwe gas field off the western coast of Myanmar. From the project, the company expects to rake in annual profit of between 350-400 billion won ($330.5-$377.7 million) before tax over the next 20 years.

Daewoo began extracting gas from one of the 11 wells at Shwe, and the latest spike in production will bring the company’s daily capacity to 200 million cubic feet of natural gas, including that from the Mya block, where Daewoo started to produce natural gas in July last year.

Once the Shwe gas field becomes fully operative, the company expects to be able to increase its capacity to 500 million cubic feet by year-end.

The company also plans to tap into the Shwe Phyu field as early as 2020.

The three gas field reserves altogether are estimated to hold 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, roughly equivalent to 700 million barrels of crude or three years’ worth of Korea’s natural gas consumption, according to the company.

Moreover, this marks the largest-scale overseas oil or gas field development project by a Korean company.

“We are glad to have successfully begun production at our Shwe gas field as a new addition to the Mya gas field,” stated a Daewoo International official. “This holds great meaning in that we will be able to see stable production from our Myanmar offshore reserves.”

The gas produced from these reserves will be sold to China and Myanmar, the company said.

By Kim Joo-hyun (jhk@heraldcorp.com)