A gold mine shaft has collapsed in Preah Vihear province, trapping at least seven miners, officials said Monday. ...
The collapse took place in a shaft that is typically mined by up to 60 people at a time, he [Rovieng Police Chief Sin Thorn].
Sin Thorn said he has warned villagers against... continue
With the potential for vast state revenues from oil extraction and mining in coming years, Cambodia is currently failing to manage its nascent extractive industries according to a think tank.
New York-based Revenue Watch Institute yesterday launched its 2013 Resource Governance Index, which included Cambodia for the first time. It looked at 58 countries, assessing governments’ reporting practices, control of corruption and rule of law in the oil, gas and mineral sectors. …
“While Cambodia received a fairly high score for its institutional and legal settings, the nation’s very low scores in its reporting practices and enabling environment accounted for its low ranking in resource governance,” a statement from Cambodians for Revenue Resource Transparency, a local Partner of Revenue Watch says. …
Australia’s Renaissance Minerals (Cambodia) Ltd. unveiled Thursday that it estimated that gold resource[s] at O’kvau area in Cambodia’s Mondolkiri province could be as much as 1.2 million ounces, the firm’s Managing Director Justin Tremain said.
Speaking during a meeting with Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy Suy Sem on Thursday, Justin said the company has conducted an exploration and estimated that the area has gold deposit of up to 1.2 million ounces, much higher than its 2011 estimate of 720,000 ounces. …
Renaissance Minerals Ltd. acquired Mondolkiri gold mining resource from Australian OZ Minerals Ltd. last year.
According to Justin, besides the above-mentioned project, the firm has also been exploring gold minerals in Ochhoung area in Keo Seima district of northeastern Mondolkiri province and Pheam Lorp area in Teuk Pos district in northern Kampong Chhnang province. …
A subsidiary of Indian firm Mesco Steel has arrived in Cambodia to begin developing a gold mine in Ratanakkiri province, according to an investor involved in the deal.
Mesco Gold has paid a fee of $1.2 million to Canada-listed exploration firm Angkor Gold to develop a 600-hectare mining exploration license in O’yadaw district, said Richard Stanger, a major stakeholder in Angkor Gold. …
Mr. Stanger said the Mesco project would be a modest sized, international standard mine, and that Angkor Gold has already identified slightly less than 500,000 ounces of gold. “It could be more,” he said. …
Luxury jewellery brand Tiffany & Co is building a diamond-polishing factory in Phnom Penh, as the company, which has enjoyed increasing sales, seeks to ensure it can continue supplying the diamonds it needs.
Construction began last month on the 1.2-hectare factory, along with a training centre, in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ), said Sotheary Chap, business development manager of the Archetype Group, the architectural firm involved in construction.
“Cambodia has no diamonds; the factory is just a platform” to process the diamonds, she said, declining to reveal construction costs or when operations would start. …
Last year, Andrew Hart, senior vice-president of Tiffany & Co’s diamonds and gemstones division, met with Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh to discuss possible investment opportunities in Cambodia. …
Cambodia’s precious-stones industry, although small, is growing. The fifth Cambodia Gems and Jewellery Fair, in June, is expecting a 12 per cent increase in visitors and exhib-itors, according to a press release. …
Prime Minister Hun Sen will travel to China on Saturday to meet with the rising superpower’s new leadership, in a trip the government expects to yield nearly $2 billion in loans and aid.
Most significantly, the Government is hoping to secure Chinese funding for a 1.67 billion oil refinery project in Kampot province, which would ensure China’s prime position in Cambodia’s yet-to-take-off oil industry. …
The statement [from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation] lists eight deals including a memorandum of understanding between the National Bank of Cambodia and China Banking Regulatory Commission, an “agreement on economic and technical cooperation” worth 48.38 million, more than $73 million in concessional loans for an irrigation project in Kompong Thom province and a bridge in Kandal province.
According to the statement, the government also expects to sign a memorandum of understanding on a 5-million-ton-a-year oil refinery project, involving China Development Bank and China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, both Chinese state-owned companies, to the tune of $1.67 billion.
China’s development bank is known as one of China’s “policy banks”- meaning that it gives loans in support of Chinese foreign policy. Such banks have funded Chinese-built hydropower dams in Cambodia.
In December, China Perfect Machinery Industry Corp.- which is majority owned by state-owned industrial giant SINOMACH- and Cambodian Petrochemical Company- which is chaired by cigarette magnate Kong Triv- agreed that work would begin on the oil refinery this year. …
Two Chinese companies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and China Petrotech Holdings ltd., have been grated exploration blocks off Cambodia’s coat to search for oil and gas. …
The Cambodian government on Thursday dismissed media reports in Australia linking Prime Minister Hun Sen to a mining company under investigation there for corruption.
Earlier this week, The Age newspaper reported on Australian documents that described officials from BHP Billiton seeking a special meeting with Hun Sen prior to being given mineral exploration rights in 2006.
The government’s Quick Reaction Unit, which deals with media, said in a statement Thursday the report was “exaggerated” and meant to “dishonor” Hun Sen ahead of the July national elections. …
A BHP Billiton mining deal being investigated for alleged corruption was personally overseen by Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, diplomatic cables reveal.
The miner’s aborted attempt to establish a bauxite mine in Cambodia, and its hospitality program for Chinese officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, are at the centre of a foreign bribery investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the US Justice Department. …
Diplomatic cables, several marked ”sensitive” and ”protected”, show for the first time Prime Minister Hun Sen’s close involvement in 2006 negotiations with BHP executives that led to him announcing to a private audience he would give ”BHP 1 million hectares of land” weeks before an agreement was signed and ”a possible tax holiday”.
They also reveal how BHP stopped all mineral exploration in Cambodia just months after a British non-governmental organisation published a 2009 report highlighting the company’s payment of $US3.5 million to Cambodian government departments and concerns it could not be accounted for.
There is no evidence suggesting any of the money went to Mr Hun Sen or his associates, and he has dismissed reports suggesting BHP was involved in bribery in Cambodia.
A delegation of 15 Indian firms is in Cambodia this week looking to increase the country’s involvement in Cambodia’s economy, particularly in the agriculture and mining sectors.
At present, Cambodia does modest trade with India, the second largest country in the world by population. But the Indian firms visiting Cambodia–after also visiting Laos and Burma-are making a bid to change that.
“Today, India’s trade with Asean is $80 billion a [year] and we do $100 million with Cambodia,” Indian Ambassador to Cambodia Dinesh Pattnaik told a seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday. …
D&D Pattnaik Group Ltd., of which Mr. Pattnaik is CEO, is already exploring for gold in Kratie province and bauxite in Mondulkiri province, Mr. Pattnaik said. …
Preah Vihear province – The residents of this sleepy district, on the edge of the Boeng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, grow rice, cassava and cashew nuts. But in a few short years, Chinese investors envisage that Rovieng will be rapidly transformed into an industrial town. …
This landlocked province lacks major road and river links to transport minerals, leading some prospectors to conclude that the iron in the ground will remain a trapped resource. …
Cambodia Iron and Steel Mining Industry Group, or CISMIG, has a government license to explore a large chunk, about 130,000 hectares, of Rovieng for iron ore. CISMIG has already signed agreements with two state-owned Chinese companies to construct the rail and port elements of the ambitious project. And the company’s chairman has told Chinese media that Rovieng will soon become a “steel town,” in which some 50,000 people will be employed in mining and processing iron ore. ..
Ben Davis, who has worked in Rovieng for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency since 2002, said … Chinese firms were also exploring in neighboring districts and throughout Preah Vihear, and would probably need a number of iron ore mines to justify the massive multi-billion-dollar railway and port project. …
In total, 20 companies hold mining licenses in the province, but only five are currently active, according to Kong Makara, director of the provincial mines and energy department. Five of the granted exploration licenses are located in Rovieng, including the two extraction licenses, he said.
One of the extraction licenses is held by Malaysian-Chinese gold miner Delcom. In 2010, the company, with support of local authorities, forcibly evicted more than 800 mostly Kuy villagers who had flocked to a mountain in Romony commune after gold was discovered. …
Mr. Sochea, the local Kuy representative, said that Delcom still operates under the protection of local armed forces, and villagers are prevented access to forests long considered part of their community land. An application to gain a community land title for the Kuy in the area is currently awaiting government approval, he said.
On a nearby economic land concession held by local firm Try Pheap, where the clearing of thousands of hectares of forest to set up a rubber plantation is underway, the employees were brought from elsewhere in the country. A whole new town is being constructed just over the border in Kompong Thom province to house the migrant workers for the plantation, many of whom are originally from southern provinces, Mr. Sochea said. …
Shares in Renaissance Minerals jumped after the company announced a 1.2 million ounce gold resource at its Okvau deposit in Cambodia.
Emerging from the trading halt this morning, the company revealed an indicated and inferred resource of 15.6 million tonnes at 2.4 grams per tonne gold for 1.2 million ounces from recent drilling.
Managing director Justin Tremain said the company had already increased the resource at Okvau by 65 per cent and the grade by 33 per cent since acquiring the project less than a year ago. …
Mesco Gold has established drilling and exploration resources at the Phum Syrang prospect in Ratanakkiri province, targeting extraction by late 2014, three to six months ahead of schedule, according to a statement released by Angkor Gold, which holds the land concession.
The statement said Mesco had completed a resource estimate at the prospect and confirmed its economic viability. …
With locals demanding dialogue with the Chinese firms behind a proposed multibillion dollar rail line to Preah Vihear province, an NGO report released yesterday highlights the dearth of information that has been made available on the project.
Chinese company Cambodia Iron Steel Mining Industry Group (CISMIG) has said it will build a 404 km railway connecting a new steel mill in Preah Vihear province and a new port in Koh Kong province, in a project estimated to be worth a total of $11.2 billion that is supposed to get underway in July.
CISMIG holds a licence to explore for, though not extract, iron ore on a massive 130,000 hectares of land in Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district. …
Kheang Sochea, a Rovieng local and Kuy ethnic minority representative, said the community held a meeting with local NGO Development and Partnership in Action last month to raise their concerns about the project impacts and likely impact on their lives. …
“What the community wants is a discussion with the company, so we can try to avoid the negative effects mining has had in other counties,” he said. …
“In a 2009 Chinese language article, CISNIG’s chairman stated that during exploration for iron ore, extensive coal deposits were discovered, which would be used to fuel an onsite power plant, and to use in the steel plants furnaces,” the report states …
“Although this is the biggest infrastructure project in Cambodia’s history, only a limited amount of information is currently publically available,” [the report] adds. …
For four years now, this mineral-flecked land deep inside the Prey Lang forest has drawn thousands of small-scale seasonal miners. …
There are perks to working the dry season: space is one, avoiding the unofficial “taxation” system is another.
For years, development agencies have urged a sweeping licensing scheme to help monitor and regulate the small-scale mining sector. Though it is required that artisanal mines be licensed under the Law on Management and Exploitation of Mineral Resources, the reality is that few, if any, are.
While the legal framework is solidly in place, the UNDP wrote in a 2011 briefing paper on small-scale mines, “this legal clause has not been developed as an active policy tool yet.”
“New policies should be developed to allow [Artisanal and small-scale mining] ASM workers and companies to work together to facilitate sharing of resource access as well as to provide equitable treatment and opportunities for ASM workers to acquire licenses,” the authors urged. …
Of a dozen miners interviewed, each, to a man, said the biggest headache of the profession was dealing with the soldiers. …
Less than 50 kilometres away, the soil is rocky and minerals can be extracted only with corrosive acids that leech into the ground – destroying the environment, and bringing with it a slew of health issues. Miners there find themselves under near-constant threat from encroaching Chinese- and Korean-owned companies: large-scale operations that employ hundreds who previously mined the land on their own terms. …
Cambodia’s largest opposition party has expressed concern that China’s investment in the country is heavily skewed towards exploiting natural resources, wreaking havoc on the environment.
China is Cambodia’s largest investor by a wide margin, having poured U.S. $9.7 billion into the country over the past 18 years, a government report said Wednesday. …
But opposition Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Son Chhay warned that China is having excessive control over Cambodia’s natural resources as companies from the Asian giant carry out extensive mineral exploration and logging and embark on hydropower projects in the impoverished country. …
Cambodia, Beijing’s top Southeast Asian ally, has borrowed vast sums from China in recent years to finance road, hydropower and defense projects, many of which are contracted to Chinese firms.
“China gives us loans, but they allow companies to set high prices,” Son Chhay said.
Cambodia owes about U.S. $3 billion dollars in loans from China, he said, adding that the debt gives the giant neighbor too much political influence in the country. …
A few years ago this scene would have played out in China. More specifically, it would have played out in a Chinese coastal region to which millions of rural folks had arrived looking for work. A huge hangar, piles of fabrics of all colors at both ends, and some 200 heads lowered over sewing machines set up one behind the other.
The atmosphere is not oppressive, just focused. But the workers here are too dark-skinned to be Chinese – though there are some: the managers of this clothes factory on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
From his office next door, He Enjia directs operations at Sunkind Textile. He left China in 1996 to set up his first factory in Cambodia. At the time, he was a pioneer. He moved for one reason – to get around export quotas on Chinese fabrics.
Sixteen years later the sector has exploded. It generates over $4 billion of revenue a year, which makes it Cambodia’s biggest export by far. In a country of only 14 million inhabitants, the textile industry employs over 300,000 in the Phnom Penh region and plays a major role in the annual growth of 7% on average that the kingdom has been experiencing over the past decade.
Attracted by the legal framework, which is very favorable for investors, the Chinese have taken the lead. “Cambodia is the easiest Asian country to invest in,” says Daniel Zarba, Director General of the Franco-Cambodian Chamber of Commerce. What’s more, the cost of production is lower in Cambodia than it is in China. “Here a worker costs on average $150 a month compared to $600 in China. Even if you take into account the fact that Cambodians are less productive, it still means your labor is two times less expensive,” says He Enjia. …
The textile industry is part of a much wider phenomenon. In Cambodia, in the logging, mining, farming, construction, and energy sectors, the Chinese are filling their pockets. The six hydroelectric dams presently being built? All by Chinese companies. The mines in the north? Often run by Chinese groups. “I even saw Chinese soldiers guarding the entrance to a mine,” says a European man living in Phnom Penh. At the recently created Phnom Penh Stock Exchange, where only one – state-owned – company is listed, the Chinese presence is freely acknowledged. “In many sectors, Chinese investors are essential for us,” explains Charles Lu, deputy director of Phnom Penh Securities, adding that Chinese groups invested $9.1 billion in Cambodia between 1994 and 2012. …
Work will start this year on a 400km railway line and a new seaport in Cambodia, with most of the funding coming from Chinese sources.
Cambodia Iron and Steel Mining Industry Group (CISMIG) and China Railway Major Bridge Engineering have signed an agreement to jointly invest US$11.2 million in the projects.
A local conservation group yesterday called for several changes to a draft sub-decree meant to turn Cambodia’s Prey Long Forest into a protected area, concerned it could end up harming, rather than conserving, the forest.
“It does not give people in surrounding communities the right to make decision” on how to manage the forest, said Svay Phoeun, a member of the group – the Prey Long People’s Network – from Preah Vihear province. …
A Chinese conglomerate headed by an adviser to Senate President Chea Sim plans to begin extracting gold and copper in Siem Reap province in two months, the firm’s chairman said yesterday.
Khmer Holding, a group of companies that claims vast mineral interests in Cambodia, opened an office in Hong Kong last week to drum up investment for their plans in Cambodia. …
Cao Yunde- who says he is an adviser to Mr. Sim but that the Senate president is not directly involved in his mining business- said in an interview at his office in Phnom Penh that Khmer Holding already has a licence to extract minerals on 36 square km of land in Siem Reap’s Chi Kreng district.
Chea Bunlong, director of the Siem Reap provincial department of Industry, Mines and Energy said he had not heard of Khmer Holdings, or a subsidiary names Khmer First Wealth Holding, which company literature says holds the Chi Kreng mining licence. …
Chi Kreng district police cheif Toch Sakal said that Nim Meng was the only company he was aware of operating in the area, but they had since ceased operations.
“They stopped and I’m not sure who they transferred [the project] to,” he said.
Khmer Resources Investment, which is backed by the Cambodian government, aims to list in Hong Kong within two years, chairman Cao Yunde said.
“We intend to leverage the capital market of Hong Kong to finance our growth through a public listing so as to maximise the benefits for Cambodia and its people,” said Cao at the opening of Khmer Resources’ Hong Kong office yesterday.
“The mission of Khmer Resources and Khmer Hong Kong is to boost the social and economic development of Cambodia, transform Cambodia’s comparative advantage in natural resources into economic benefits, and adopt the capital market approach to the mining industries.” …
Khmer Resources’ shareholders included Chinese state-owned enterprises, listed and private Chinese companies and Australian firms, said Cao without revealing details. …
In Cambodia, Khmer Resources has a 280 square kilometre coal mine, a 120 sqkm nickel and cobalt mine, a 288 sqkm rare-earth mine, a 218 sqkm rare-earth mine, a 198 sqkm copper and gold mine, a 198 sqkm rare-earth mine and an 80 sqkm copper and gold mine. …
