A Thai firm Onshore Logistics Services Co Ltd (OLS) has expressed its strong desire in investing in the development of oil and gas in the Overlapping Claims Area (OCA) between Cambodia and Thailand, according to a release by the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in Bangkok.
The oil and gas development investment project was disclosed during a meeting between Cambodian diplomatic officials led by Thuch Dalin, Chargé d’Affaires of The Embassy of Cambodia in Bangkok and OLS’s delegation led by its CEO Phakin Pataradittakul at the embassy on Friday last week, said the release.
“The chargé d’affaires expressed his appreciation on the project and asked the delegation to prepare and submit an application for investment to Cambodian authorities through the embassy in Thailand,” the release pointed out. However, the release did not provide any technical explanation of the project.
During the meeting, Pataradittakul presented the project to the Cambodia diplomatic officials, saying that OLS has developed a project to develop oil and gas in the form of a Multi-Client Seismic 3D Survey (MC3D) in OCA that covers a total area of approximately 26,000 kilometres between Cambodia and Thailand.
Even though the two countries recognise that the OCA holds a huge quantity of natural gas and resources for both countries, the negotiation of sharing benefits has not crossed their minds as the negotiation between the two governments has met with little success so far as it is characterised in both economies—resource development, politics and border.
Meng Saktheara, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), told Khmer Times recently that Cambodia has not received any feedback from its Thai counterpart regarding the resumption of the negotiation since the government sent a letter to Thailand’s former negotiation working group led by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“They have not responded to us yet as they have not formed a new negotiation team… We are waiting for their response which we have not seen yet since we sent them a letter about a year ago after we formed a new working group. It is impossible to get results if both sides do not sit at the table for negotiation,” Saktheara said.
Kurujit Nakonthap, executive director of the Petroleum Institute of Thailand, has urged the government to work with Cambodia to relieve the impact of global gas price fluctuations in the long term after the cabinet had an informal discussion in January this year about joint development of petroleum resources, the value of which has been estimated at 5 trillion baht.
Source: Khmer Times
