Energy

The Lao government said yesterday that it would have the controversial Don Sahong dam undergo a formal process of prior consultation – a decision that will probably delay the project further. “The government has already demonstrated that it is committed to developing the Don Sahong project ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...

A top court in Thailand agreed on Tuesday to hear a lawsuit brought by villagers against the country’s decision to purchase power from the planned Xayaburi mega dam in neighboring Laos, which green groups say could threaten the region’s environment and food security. Overruling a lower ...

Hundreds of families due to be displaced by the planned 108-MW Stung Chhay Areng dam were called to a meeting Tuesday with provincial authorities, who presented a plan for relocation and then distributed gifts of shrimp paste and MSG. Heng Samnang, a staffer for local NGO ...

The army created a new platoon on Monday to guard an area near the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province, where hundreds of ethnic minority residents have fiercely resisted plans by a Chinese company to build a hydropower dam that would flood their ancestral lands. The ...

A South Korean company on Monday completed a $100,000 energy-efficient street light initiative in Pursat province, and said it will now invest $100 million to construct a factory to manufacture the lights, officials said. The Global Digital Media Group Co. Ltd. installed 200 light-emitting diode (LED) ...

The National Assembly plans to summon three ministers for questioning over compensation to families who will be displaced or harmed by development projects, officials from the National Assembly said Sunday. Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, said the National Assembly would write to Environment Minister Say ...

Malaysia’s Mega First Corp Bhd says it increased spending on a controversial dam project in Laos and a new rubber project in Cambodia by 45 percent to MYR 50.4 million ($15.7 million) in 2013. Project development expenditure on the Don Sahong dam on the Cambodian border ...

A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...

Cambodia’s energy minister allayed concerns in parliament over inadequate compensation offered to villagers who face relocation for a proposed China-backed dam on a Mekong River tributary, saying the government has allocated to villagers more than four times the area taken over for the project. Minister of ...

Energy Minister Suy Sem will answer in the National Assembly (NA) on Thursday this week over the construction plan of Se San 2 dam in Stung Treng province, according to a press statement by the General Secretariat of the National Assembly. ...

In Samrong Leu village, a picturesque community nestled deep in the verdant fields of Kors Kralor district, the acrid smell of smoke fills the air. Outside almost every house in this community, billows of smoke continuously emerge from the domes of homemade mud kilns, drifting around ...

The Chinese government signed to provide 300 biodigesters to Cambodian households on Monday, officials said. Sar Chetra, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, signed to receive the donation from Song Xiaoguo, economic councilor at the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

Residents in the vicinity of Kab Ko market in Phnom Penh’s Chamkarmon district found themselves fumbling in the dark yet again yesterday on the second consecutive day of hours-long power outages. According to locals, electricity to the street failed around noon on Wednesday and was restored ...

The minister of mines and energy on Monday said a new private-public working group will study the impacts of a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong opposed by hundreds of resident ethnic minority families and find them an adequate resettlement site. A Cambodian consultancy, SBK Research ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Government on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Inter Far East Engineering Public Company Limited of Thailand to study the feasibility of turning the city’s waste into energy, according to a notice posted on the municipality’s website. ...

Filthy trucks loaded with luxury timber rule the red-earth roads in this heavily deforested district. Each day, dozens of 10-wheelers bounce along the pot-holed roads, carting logs of the much-sought Thnong timber. And while some of the cargo is legal, much of it is not. ...

Laos will push ahead with its ambition to become the “battery of Southeast Asia,” planning a Mekong River dam that has drawn opposition from neighbors and threatens to involve China and the U.S. Four Mekong River nations are scheduled to meet June 26-27 in Thailand to ...

In what looks to be a concerted push into the Southeast Asian energy sector, Japanese import and export conglomerate Marubeni Corporation has acquired a large stake of Cambodia’s power generation infrastructure. In a Tokyo Stock Exchange filing dated June 2, Marubeni announced it had purchased a ...

Cambodia and Iran are looking for possibilities to strengthen and expand bilateral ties and cooperation for the mutual benefits of the two countries and peoples. Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong held a talk on Monday with the Hanoi-based Iranian Ambassador to Cambodia ...

Marubeni Corp. said Monday that it would acquire a 20 percent stake in a Cambodia-based electricity generation and transmission business owned and operated by Malaysia’s Leader Group, marking Japan’s first foray into Cambodia’s power market. Leader Infrastructure Ltd. operates two 50 megawatt coal-fired power stations in ...

A group of 15 local and international rights groups Tuesday sent a slew of letters to the Chinese government and companies involved in the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in Stung Treng province seeking a halt to dam construction due to serious environmental and social ...

Two draft laws on judicial reform were easily passed by the single-party National Assembly on Friday but the session was overshadowed by a rookie lawmaker’s attack on lax enforcement of forestry laws in Stung Treng province. On the fourth day of the third plenary session of ...

Accompanied by his wife, Bun Rany, Prime Minister Hun Sen continued his trip to China on Tuesday evening by attending a dinner reception hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to state news agency Agence Kampuchea Press. Mr. Hun Sen and his delegation of high-level officials ...