Though there has been intense fighting in Arakan (Rakhine) State’s Kyaukphyu Township since 20 February 2024, it is business as usual at the Chinese owned projects on the township’s Maday Island.

The oil refinery and storage facilities and the pipelines taking oil and gas from Maday Island to China are all operational and working as normal, as is the gas refinery in Malakyun Village, also on Maday Island, according to locals.

A Maday Island resident said to DMG: “Since the second week of February, three tankers have arrived at Maday Island one after another. Their oil has been unloaded near the storage facilities, and the pipeline is still running normally. We've heard the tankers will depart at the end of March.”

The oil and gas pipelines go through Myochaung Island and Ann Township in Arakan State before going through central Myanmar to northern Shan State and then China.

Despite there being no fighting on Maday Island there is very fierce ongoing fighting at the junta’s Danywaddy Naval Base which is only about 6.5 km from Maday Island, but separated from it by a strait of water known locally as the Kalaba Strait.

Though no artillery shells have yet hit Maday Island they have landed near to the gas pipeline as it passes through the villages of Kyattein, Ookin, and Daunt Chaung on the mainland in Kyaukphyu Township.

The Chinese government has reached agreements with the junta to invest in projects, including infrastructure such as railways, roads, a deep-sea port, and the development of a special economic zone (SEZ) in Kyaukphyu Township.

But, as of now, neither the infrastructure projects nor the SEZ have been implemented. Despite this the junta is still earning millions of US dollars from the oil and gas pipelines to China and the Shwe natural gas field in the Andaman Sea, offshore from Kyaukphyu.