Cambodia stops offshore oil extraction after KrisEnergy goes bankrupt: PM
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on Sunday that the kingdom's first-ever oil extraction had come to a full stop after Singapore-based oil and gas firm KrisEnergy had filed for liquidation.
KrisEnergy started pumping crude oil from one of Cam-bodia's offshore oilfields, Block A, in late 2020, which was the first crude oil production in the Southeast Asian nation.
However, the firm went into liquidation in June after produ-ction at the oil field failed to meet expectations, leaving it unable to repay its debts.
"On December 29, we anno-unced the first drop of oil -- it's now perhaps a failure," Hun Sen said in a public speech here.
KrisEnergy, which held a 95 percent stake in the block, while the Cambodian government owned the remaining 5 percent, had expected a peak produc-tion of 7,500 barrels a day, or 2.73 million barrels per annum.
"In the end, the production was only 1,000 barrels a day. Now, the company goes ban-krupt and a tanker that carried the extracted oil had run away because we had not prevented it on time. It entered the Thai territory," he said.
Xinhua