Cambodia's Hun Sen hails extraction of the country's 'initial drop of oil'
29 December, 2020
Cambodian premier Hun Sen announced on Tuesday (Dec 29) that the kingdom had extracted its primary drop of crude oil from its waters, a long-awaited milestone for just one of Southeast Asia's poorest nations.
The Gulf of Thailand boasts significant oil deposits, with Chevron first finding tested reserves off Cambodia in 2005.
But production stalled as the federal government and the US giant failed to reach a revenue-sharing agreement, leading the strong to market its stake to Singapore's KrisEnergy in 2014.
Hun Sen hailed the earliest extraction of crude "a fresh achievement for Cambodia's market".
"The first drop of oil has been produced."
"The entire year 2021 is coming... and we've received a huge surprise for our nation - the first oil development inside our territory," he explained in a Facebook post.
The crude was taken from a location off the southwestern coast of Sihanoukville.
Chevron's discovery of the reserves led the kingdom to come to be feted due to the region's next probable petro-state, with the federal government estimating vast sums of barrels of crude had been beneath its waters.
KrisEnergy currently holds a 95 % stake of the block where in fact the oil was extracted from, as the government holds the others.
The business expects a peak production rate of 7,500 barrels a day time from an initial phase - a modest amount compared with Cambodia's oil-producing neighbours Vietnam and Thailand.
But the revenues could be significant for the federal government, which estimated in 2017 that it could make at least US$500 million in royalties and taxes from the first period of the project.
The discovery also raised concerns of how Cambodia - a country very long ranked poorly regarding transparency - would use its new-found wealth but Hun Sen, Asia's longest-serving leader, dismissed them, calling the extraction "a blessing" for Cambodians.
"It isn't a curse like it features been cited by some ill-willed people," he said.
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