Rush for Cambodia’s oil begins

Oil companies have begun lining up for licenses to tap Cambodia’s vast oil and gas fields, but experts are wondering whether this new wealth will be a blessing for the country. Firms from China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Kuwait, Australia, and France have come knocking on officials’ doors to get permits to explore and develop the country’s energy riches. US giant Chevron Corp. has already drilled in the Gulf of Thailand in the last two years and found oil in five oil wells.
According to several studies conducted by the United Nations, World Bank, Harvard University, and other reliable institutions, Cambodian reserves could contain as many as 2 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Based on the current world price of oil and gas, this may provide Cambodia with annual revenues of US$ 6 billion a year over the next two decades, an amount more than the country’s gross domestic product which is only about US$5 billion a year.

Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest countries. Some 40 per cent of its population of 14 million live below the national poverty line of 50 cents a day, 50 per cent of children never complete their primary education, 30,000 children die every year from preventable diseases, and only half of the countryside has access to electricity.

Many experts fear a repeat of what has happened in many other developing countries where massive influx of oil money enriched elites without improving the standards of living of the population.

Cambodian oil fields are very important for China because they would allow its fuel shipments to bypass the congested Malacca Strait, through which nearly 80 per cent of its oil imports now flow.

Asia News