Cash-strapped Cambodia eyes black gold

US oil giant Chevron is poised to prove Cambodia is sitting on oil reserves worth $1 billion annually.

SIHANOUKVILLE, CAMBODIA

In the coming weeks, US oil giant Chevron will ferry them hundreds of miles offshore, and use them to reconfirm what many already believe to be true: Cambodia is sitting on a billion-dollar gold mine. Black gold to be exact.

The amount of oil Cambodia will produce in the coming years is likely to have a negligible impact on world markets. But for this impoverished country of 13 million, still recovering from the brutality of the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese occupation, it could be nothing short of transformative.

Christian Science Monitor