Cambodia has aspired to draw oil since deposits were discovered off Preah Sihanouk province’s coast more than 15 years ago. But an offshore oil field licensee has missed another deadline for producing the nation’s first oil, which the firm initially promised last year, and now faces a heavy debt load and a global slowdown in oil and gas exploration.
KrisEnergy, a Singapore-based oil and gas company, is licensed to extract oil in Cambodia’s Block A territory about 150 kilometers off the coast in the Gulf of Thailand. The company missed a deadline on Tuesday to produce oil from the block, but the Cambodian government has given the firm until the end of this year to produce oil or potentially lose its drilling rights.
The government holds a 5 percent stake in Block A, the rest of which belongs to KrisEnergy, and under the Petroleum Law updated last year, the state also owns all the nation’s petroleum resources.
In full: https://vodenglish.news/cambodias-first-offshore-oil-extraction-delayed-again-amid-pandemic/
