Minerals and mineral products

Cambodia’s reliance on imported fossil fuels to meet its energy needs is set to increase in the coming years, despite the raft of hydropower projects planned by the government, according to new data from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Using baseline figures from the Institute ...

Canadian miner Angkor Gold has found “visible gold in the soil samples” in the Otray prospect in Ratanakkiri province, which hints at possibly larger reserves, said CEO and chairman Mike Weeks in a press release published on Wednesday. ...

The government plans to draft a law designed to govern safety standards in the Kingdom’s mining industry, an official said yesterday, little more than a week after at least one gold miner went missing when a shaft collapsed in Preah Vihear province. Khieu Muth, a secretary ...

Geopacific Resources, an Australian mineral exploration company, said it has extended the zone of copper found in Preah Vihear province’s Kou Sa district to 18 kilometres, the company announced yesterday. ...

Blackouts in Phnom Penh will no longer be a problem after an energy source near Sihanoukville starts providing an extra 50 megawatts of coal-fired power to the city next month, the director-general of Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said. Keo Rottanak said by mid-June at the latest ...

A gold mine shaft has collapsed in Preah Vihear province, trapping at least seven miners, officials said Monday. The collapse took place in a shaft that is typically mined by up to 60 people at a time, he [Rovieng Police Chief Sin Thorn]. Sin Thorn said ...

Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal has given the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) the green light to proceed with a plan to build coal-powered plants in Myanmar and Cambodia – providing Thailand with 10,000 megawatts of electricity. Egat has also been instructed to negotiate the ...

Recurring power cuts and power shortages draw sharp complaints from Cambodia’s public, the political opposition and business owners. Keo Ratanak,  director-general of Electricite du Cambodge (EDC), talked to the Post’s Sarah Thust. What is EDC doing to reduce electricity cuts here? The issue of power shortage is ...

Australia’s Renaissance Minerals (Cambodia) Ltd. unveiled Thursday that it estimated that gold resource[s] at O’kvau area in Cambodia’s Mondolkiri province could be as much as 1.2 million ounces, the firm’s Managing Director Justin Tremain said. Speaking during a meeting with Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mines and ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and neighbouring Vietnam rose more than 10 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, data from the Vietnam Embassy in Phnom Penh showed. Officials said cross-border trade facilitation by both countries significantly contributed to the growth. But they said ...

A subsidiary of Indian firm Mesco Steel has arrived in Cambodia to begin developing a gold mine in Ratanakkiri province, according to an investor involved in the deal. Mesco Gold has paid a fee of $1.2 million to Canada-listed exploration firm Angkor Gold to develop a ...

Luxury jewellery brand Tiffany & Co is building a diamond-polishing factory in Phnom Penh, as the company, which has enjoyed increasing sales, seeks to ensure it can continue supplying the diamonds it needs. Construction began last month on the 1.2-hectare factory, along with a training centre, ...

China’s expanding investment portfolio in Cambodia has brought into sharper focus the darker side of the Asian giant’s “development projects” in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. And it is in the southwestern corner of Cambodia—known for its rich biodiversity, forest covered hills and bubbling rivers—where this ...

Cambodia’s national electricity provider yesterday appealed to the public to unplug from the national energy supply in an effort to alleviate chronic seasonal power shortages that are causing blackouts across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country. Eletricite du Cambodge (EdC) published an announcement asking ...

A BHP Billiton mining deal being investigated for alleged corruption was personally overseen by Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, diplomatic cables reveal. The miner’s aborted attempt to establish a bauxite mine in Cambodia, and its hospitality program for Chinese officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, are at ...

A delegation of 15 Indian firms is in Cambodia this week looking to increase the country’s involvement in Cambodia’s economy, particularly in the agriculture and mining sectors. At present, Cambodia does modest trade with India, the second largest country in the world by population. But the ...

Preah Vihear province – The residents of this sleepy district, on the edge of the Boeng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, grow rice, cassava and cashew nuts. But in a few short years, Chinese investors envisage that Rovieng will be rapidly transformed into an industrial town. ...

Shares in Renaissance Minerals jumped after the company announced a 1.2 million ounce gold resource at its Okvau deposit in Cambodia. Emerging from the trading halt this morning, the company revealed an indicated and inferred resource of 15.6 million tonnes at 2.4 grams per tonne gold ...

Mesco Gold has established drilling and exploration resources at the Phum Syrang prospect in Ratanakkiri province, targeting extraction by late 2014, three to six months ahead of schedule, according to a statement released by Angkor Gold, which holds the land concession. The statement said Mesco had ...

With locals demanding dialogue with the Chinese firms behind a proposed multibillion dollar rail line to Preah Vihear province, an NGO report released yesterday highlights the dearth of information that has been made available on the project. Chinese company Cambodia Iron Steel Mining Industry Group (CISMIG) ...

The remote district of Rovieng was once a battleground between Cambodian government troops and Pol Pot’s genocidal Khmer Rouge. Unexploded bombs still lurk in its fields and forests. So does something more desirable – iron ore – and supposedly in such huge quantities two Chinese companies ...

For four years now, this mineral-flecked land deep inside the Prey Lang forest has drawn thousands of small-scale seasonal miners. There are perks to working the dry season: space is one, avoiding the unofficial “taxation” system is another. For years, development agencies have urged a sweeping ...

Market competition resulting from costly domestic rice remains a key factor driving Thai exporters to seek openings in neighbouring countries where the rice trade is more prosperous. Exporters say their performance was weak last year, mirroring the country’s overall decline in rice exports, which plunged ...

Work will start this year on a 400km railway line and a new seaport in Cambodia, with most of the funding coming from Chinese sources. Cambodia Iron and Steel Mining Industry Group (CISMIG) and China Railway Major Bridge Engineering have signed an agreement to jointly invest ...