On December 18 2020 Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced the country had extracted its first drop of oil from an offshore oil field known as Block A. The long-awaited milestone signals a significant shift for the country, which had aspired to extract oil since the deposits were first discovered 15 years ago.
As Hun Sen announced in a Facebook post, “The year 2021 is coming…and we have received a huge gift for our nation—the first oil production in our territory”.
In 2017, the Cambodian government entered into a joint venture with Singapore’s KrisEnergy to develop oil wells in the Aspara oil fields—an area known as block A, off the coast of Preah Sihanouk province. KrisEnergy currently holds a 95% stake in the block.
