Conservationists call for boycott

Conservationists call for boycott

BANGKOK (AFP): Conservationists in Thailand have called for a consumer boycott of Thailand's largest company as well as its U.S. and French partners in the Yadana gas development project, reports said yesterday.

The conservationists based in Thailand's northern provinces urged consumers not to buy products from the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), U.S. oil giant Unocal and France's Total, the Bangkok Post said.

Conservationists are battling to stop the construction of a 649 kilometer pipeline designed to carry gas from the Yadana oilfield in the Andaman Sae to Ratchaburi, west of Bangkok.

They say the pipeline, which has been completed as far as the Thai-Myanmar border, will destroy some of Thailand's last remaining virgin forests.

Unocal and Total have developed the pipeline in Myanmar while the PTT is handling construction on the Thai side.