Companies to invest more in oil, gas exploration in Block B, Cambodia

The Singapore Petroleum Company (Cambodia) Limited (SPC) and its two partners said here on Friday that they will invest another 2.5 million U.S. dollars progressively in oil and gas exploration in Block B in off-sea Cambodia.

"We are interested in exploring oil and gas in Block B," said Lim Beng See, who is in charge of investor relation and communication for SPC.

So far, SPC and its two partners, the PTTEP International Limited and the Resourceful Petroleum Limited, have invested about one million U.S. dollars in Block B, he said.

"We don't know how many barrels of oil and gas there are, yet we are at the exploration stage in Block B," he added.

Block B is located in the Gulf of Thailand, some 250 kilometers off the coast of Cambodia. Is located to the southeast of the Khmer Basin, where a number of oil and gas discoveries have been made, said a SPC statement.

Each company has one-third of the shares in Block B in accordance with the approval of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA), it added.

Investors from early 10 countries have been trying to find oil and gas in Block A to F near the seashore of Cambodia in the past decade, but none of them starts production yet.

Cambodia is preparing a draft law for oil and gas management and expects to get benefits from oil and gas in 2010.

Millions of barrels of oil and gas are estimated to lie beneath the sea southwest to Cambodia.

Source:Xinhua