Government Hopes for Chevron Offshore Oil Deal This Year

The Cambodian government expects U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. CVX +0.77% to begin developing the country’s first offshore oil field early next year, and hopes the nation will become a regional hot spot for oil and gas investment, a government official said Wednesday. Cambodia has vast untapped oil and gas resources both on land and offshore, but development has been slow as the country has emerged from the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge and decades of war. Chevron discovered commercial resources at Block A off Cambodia’s coast, raising hopes that oil revenue would soon flow into the coffers of one of the world’s poorest countries. The company has drilled 18 wells at the block, but reaching terms for developing the field has been slow. … Under a production-sharing agreement, the government will likely receive most of the revenue from the project, though the exact percentage varies with factors including the price of oil and production and development costs, he [Sok Khavan, acting director-general of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority] said. …

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