August 29, 2006

TO DRILL IS TO FIND:

Cash-strapped Cambodia eyes black gold: US oil giant Chevron is poised to prove Cambodia is sitting on oil reserves worth $1 billion annually. (Adam Piore, 8/30/06, The Christian Science Monitor)

Oil companies from China, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan are all vying for offshore contracts. The UN Development Program (UNDP) identified oil as the best hope for the country's future, and released estimates widely cited in the development community. In Chevron's "Block A" alone, the first of six demarcated offshore zones, the government share of oil and gas revenues are expected to top between $700 million to $1 billion a year.

By some estimates - according to the UNDP - it's not unreasonable to believe that in the coming years, revenue from gas and oil deposits will more than double Cambodia's GDP, which now stands at about $5 billion (much of that is from foreign aid). And that's not even counting the disputed zones between Thailand and Cambodia, which could be the richest of all.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 29, 2006 8:37 PM
Comments

. . . and all the profits will be going to the good citizens of Cambodia with none siphoned off to government officials, of course.

Cambodia will have a flourishing economy on a par with. . . uh. . . Cuba?

Posted by: obc at August 29, 2006 8:57 PM

Oh great, there's oil in Cambodia. Who knew LBJ and Nixon knew?

Posted by: Lou Gots at August 29, 2006 9:24 PM

Cheney must have known!

Posted by: Dave W at August 29, 2006 9:47 PM

Great -- even the Cambodians will drill for oil and gas off their coast, and we won't do the same off California and North Carolina.

Posted by: Steve White at August 29, 2006 10:52 PM

Howzabout the coast of that prominent slave state, Delaware?

Posted by: ratbert at August 29, 2006 11:33 PM

"the disputed zones between Thailand and Cambodia, which could be the richest of all" There will be hot border skirmishes in the near future. Pressure for political reforms will be ignored. The Cambodians are forever doomed to live under the jetboots of the communists.

Posted by: ic at August 30, 2006 2:20 AM

Jetboots? I think you're overestimating the commies' technological prowess, ic.

Posted by: jgm at August 30, 2006 4:43 AM

Rest easy communists won't devile the pure waters of the earth for filthy oil profits.

Posted by: erp at August 30, 2006 7:51 AM

Steve,

If you took a look at certain weather maps that show the warmest water in the Gulf of Mexico and compare that with where Katrina traveled, you will find that oil drilling has certain, uh, heat effects. Therefore, I don't blame Florida or North Carolina from being skittish about drilling.

We'd be better off trying to develop syncrude from Powder River coal.

Posted by: Brad S at August 30, 2006 8:41 AM

Ratbert,

Bring on the drilling, as far as I'm concerned. Joe Biden's a disgrace, but I'm actually sort of looking forward to the "Biden '08 -- Just a Good Ol' Boy From the Deep South Who'll Shove His Rosary Beads Down Your Throat If You Say He Isn't Religious" campaign. Almost as much fun as listening to his kid explain why he should be attorney general.

Posted by: Random Lawyer at August 30, 2006 8:57 AM

Have the Chinese claimed sovereignty yet (as with the Spratly Islands)?

Posted by: jim hamlen at August 30, 2006 4:54 PM
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