Cambodia imported 412,190 tons of Crude Oil in Q-1 of Y 2013, a 12% fall compared with the 471,000 tons it imported at the same period last year, the Commerce ministry’s report showed Saturday.
During the January-March period this year, the country spent US$ 397-M to buy its Crude Oil down... continue
Cambodia had spent 1 billion U. S. dollars to buy petroleum from foreign suppliers in the first seven months of this year, up 22 percent from 817 million U.S. dollars at the same period a year ago, a report of the Commerce Ministry showed Saturday.
The country had imported 1,014,210 tons of petroleum during the January-July period this year, up 14 percent from 887,080 tons at the same period last year, it said.
The PTT Public Company Limited is looking to invest 800 million baht in energy business expansion in Cambodia and Laos in the next five years.
The PTT planned to open 4-5 more gas stations in Laos and Cambodia each. The Thai energy giant already has 14 gas stations and 3 oil reserves in Cambodia. The new move is set to promote ‘PTT’ as a premium brand in the ASEAN region…
ASEAN senior officials on energy gathered here on Monday to discuss and prepare documents for the 30th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting and related meetings to be held on Sept. 12. The two-day preparatory meeting, under the theme “ASEAN Green Connectivity”, was chaired by Tun Lean, director general of energy department at Cambodia’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy ( MIME).
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the meeting, Victor Jona, deputy director general of the MIME’s energy department, said the discussions were focused on ASEAN Power Grid Connectivity, ASEAN Green Energy Connectivity and efficiency of energy consumption in the bloc. “We discussed directions and targets of key energy matters crucial to the realization of both the ASEAN Connectivity and eventually the aspiration of an ASEAN Community by 2015,” he said. The meeting was also a chance to further strengthen energy cooperation within ASEAN and with dialogue partners, and international organizations, he added…
The disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea are approaching a tipping point.
As former ASEAN secretary-general Rodolfo Severino said last month: “The disputes cannot be resolved anytime soon, if at all. The most that can be done is to prevent them developing into armed conflict.”…
There are six claimants to all or part of the sea, which is traversed by over one-third of world shipping and holds rich fishing stocks and vast reserves of oil and gas…
At the ASEAN ministerial meeting in Phnom Penh last month, the Philippines and Vietnam urged their colleagues to publicly support them.
Cambodia, this year’s chairman, would not allow it…
So now, as well as China confronting members of ASEAN, we have the group fighting within itself – so much so that after intemperate accusations of “dirty politics”, Cambodia replaced its ambassador in Manila.
Exacerbating matters, Washington – already imbued with growing anti-Beijing sentiment – has been bolstering the resolve of ASEAN’s claimants, while Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand strengthen their ties to China…
Two items on the government’s energy agenda – preparations for talks with Cambodia on a solution to the countries’ overlapping claims in the Gulf of Thailand and the plan to open a 21st round of bidding for petroleum exploration and production concessions – are likely to be delayed until next year.
The government had planned to finish its preparations for the negotiations next month and send them to the Cabinet and Parliament for approval. However, completion of the preparations might be postponed until next year, as the government does not want to run the risk of the opposition raising the issues in the upcoming censure debate, an Energy Ministry source said.
Songpope Polachan, director-general of the Department of Mineral Fuels, said both countries would benefit from the development of natural gas fields in the overlapping 26,000 square-kilometre area if they can solve the problem quickly…
US-listed corporations in Cambodia, including Chevron, Total, CNOOC and ConocoPhillips, that are engaged in extractive industries are now required to comply with additional transparency rules.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented new regulations last week, two years after the legislation was initially passed by Congress.
Cambodian monitors have lauded the new requirements and even suggested further implementation of such measures by the Cambodia government, but industry analysts have said the developments may do nothing more than push illicit activities further underground. …
The SEC now requires the disclosure of all specific payments during all phases of development, including taxes, royalties, fees and licences, production entitlements, bonuses and signature bonuses, dividends and infrastructure improvements. …
At the turnoff of Sihanoukville outside Phnom Penhmetal shop owner Kuch Sareun watches the sparks fly as his emplyees join pieces of steel. This year, he installed a diesel-run generator at his business since the frequent electricity outages were hurting his bottom line. …
Electricity is a sore point for many in Cambodia-due to the power grid’s instability and its costs. Right now, less than 30 percent of the country is electrified-one of the lowest rates in Southeast Asia-and most power comes from burning expensive diesel or from imports. …
In response to this, the government is actively promoting investment in big hydropower and coal-fired power plants. By 2020, the plan is to have 18 hydroelectric and coal plants in operation. …
While the prospect of a stable, cheaper electricity supply pleases many, especially in the industrial sector, NGOs worry that local populations and the environment near these large-scale projects will end up paying a high price. They favor a more in a decentralized energy system featuring renewable sources of power like solar and biomass gasifiers. …
Cambodians for Resource Revenue Transparency (CRRT) wrote a letter to Ms. Elizabeth M. Murphy, Secretary of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 7, 2012 to back up PWYP’s recommendations and to encourage the Commission to define the “Project” in relation to each lease, license and/or other concession level arrangement entered into by a resource extraction issuer. CRRT also requested that rule should not allow companies to receive exemptions from compliance with the law as a result of host country secrecy laws, as this would simply encourage governments to create new laws restricting transparency.
Today, a Cambodian transparency advocacy group welcomed a rule approved in the United States on Wednesday August 22nd by US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which will require oil, gas and mining companies to report payments made to the US government or foreign governments. …
The SEC ruling specifically references reporting rules contained in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the voluntary global extractive industry organization formed in 2002. (…) Cambodia has thus far declined to join the EITI, which helps improve a country’s investment potential by establishing clear and consistent reporting requirements. …
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted rules that would make it a legal requirement for listed companies operating in the extractive industries and doing business in Cambodia to disclose all major payments they make to the government.
The rules, which were adopted in Washington on Wednesday and stem from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Investor Protection Act, have been under consideration for the past 16 months as the industry groups did their best to lobby the SEC into making the regulations as loose as possible for fear such levels of openness would put them at a competitive disadvantage.
For Cambodia, it means that such companies as Chevron Corp., Total, ConocoPhilips, and China National Offshore Oil Cooperation-which all have offshore exploration licenses and issue shares in the U.S- will be obliged to disclose all payments made to the Cambodian government over $100,000 from Septmeber 2013 onwards. …
While the Ministry of Finance begun publishing revenues earned from the extractive industries here, it does so arbitrarily and avoids breaking down where the payments come from. …
So far, Cambodia has refused to join global oversight schemes such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which requires governments to declare their income and expenditure from money they earn from payments such as contracts, bonuses and royalties.
Petrol prices have jumped by 150 riel (US$0.03) a litre, much to the dismay of Cambodia’s poor, as NGOs appealed to the government to take action. …
Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU), issued a letter dated August 16 appealing to Prime Minister Hun Sen to take action to lower fuel prices below the current price of 5,650 riel a litre for super and 5,450 riel for regular. …
Bin May Mialia, commercial manager for the Thai-based PTT Oil Company, said there were three factors leading to increased petrol prices in Cambodia: instability in the Middle East, where most gasoline is produced; natural disasters in Asia, such as those in China and the Philippines; and the drought in the US, which has affected the raw materials needed to produce ethanol to mix with gasoline or diesel, thus increasing demand in the US as well. …
…Speaking to an audience of more than 150 private- and public-sector energy officials at the Second East Asia Summit Energy Efficiency Conference, officials agreed that not enough was being done to convince manufacturers and other large consumers of energy to switch to new energy efficient technologies. …
Government officials have said that in order for Cambodia to become more energy efficient, factories in the country must conduct energy audits of their operations to find out where they can save on consumption. …
According to data released yesterday by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, 61.5 percent of Cambodia’s electricity is imported, while in 2010, residential customers paid higher tariffs than any other country in the region.
Consumer prices in Phnom Penh grew just 1.8 percent year-on-year in the month of June, the lowest increase in almost two years, as food and gas prices remained stable, according to figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Planning.
In its monthly inflation report, the ministry said that the price of gas dropped 2.7 percent in June compared to the same month in 2011, while the commodity dropped 6.3 percent from May to June.
Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices increased by just 2.3 percent over the 12-month period. Rice increased 4.4 percent year-to-year, while milk, cheese and eggs increased by 4.1 percent. The price of meat increased 2.5 percent over the same period. …
Cambodia is mulling over a nuclear power option to feed its anemic energy sector, although private sector pundits called the rough plan a dream – a dangerous one at that.
The government plans to use atomic energy in the future as oil, coal and biomass power sources were bound to be depleted, Suy Sem, Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy, told the National Assembly this week.
“We cannot avoid building nuclear power plants. It is the government’s target,” he said, without giving a specific time when a project might be launched. …
Oil imports to Cambodia in the first half of the year increased 22 percent to nearly 1 million tons compared to the same period last year, according to figures obtained yesterday from the Ministry of Commerce.
According to the data, Cambodia imported 922,860 tons of gas in the first six months at a cost of $921 million, compared to the $693 million spent on 756,100 tons of gas over the first six months in 2011.
The growing number of cars in the country contributed to the increase in demand, according to the data, which showed that Cambodia imported 486,827 cars in the first six months of this year, a 45.26 percent rise over the same period in the previous year.
A total of $239.2 million was spent on vehicles in the first six months of this year, a 33.29 percent rise compared to 2011. …
Cambodia will push to finalise a rice-exporting bloc with four other regional countries by the end of the year in a bid to become the world’s “food basket”, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
The group of countries including Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar – and known as the Association of Milled Rice Exporting Countries – would also look to become a counterbalance to Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). …
Hun Sen has theorised that the rice-exporting power of such a bloc could become a bargaining chip in negotiations with OPEC…
State power company Electricite du Cambodge (EDC) plans to increase the price of electricity to make up for a drop in revenue this year, according to a Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy official.
“This year, oil prices went up, which meant the EDC did not make the profit as planned because we have not increased the price of electricity yet. So we hope to raise electricity prices in the near future,” said Tun Lian, director-general of the minstry’s energy department. …
Oil production in Cambodia may not begin until 2016, or at least three years after the originally appointed date, Chevron officials reportedly said at a Ministry of Environment meeting on Friday.
Government officials yesterday confirmed the feasibility of the time frame.
If Chevron Overseas Petroleum Cambodia gained approval for a production permit by the end of this year, it could embark on a 34-month process that would lead to drawing oil from Cambodia’s offshore Block A in the Gulf of Thailand, according to people who attended Friday’s meeting. …
Cambodia’s inflation rose by 5.49 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year, due to increases in food and fuel prices, according to the monthly data from the National Institute of Statistics compiled by the Post.
However, economists and government officials said they were not concerned about any impact on the country’s macro economy.
The data showed the price of gasoline rose by 13.12 per cent, food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 6.87 per cent, milled rice went up by 6.67 per cent, meat increased about 15 per cent, of which pork rose by 19 per cent…
Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to the world to harmonize energy prices to food prices as food production shouldn’t outstrip the consumption of volatile fuels while food price remains stable, at the 4th workshop on food security and nutrition.
Calling it “The Phnom Penh Initiative,” Prime Minister Hun Sen requested that the issue be brought to the world leaders for immediate solutions, in an aim to prevent the world from clashing between oil producers and food producers, while the global downturn still prevails.
The governments of the region and the world have considered much on food security as well as fuel security, but no effective solution to integrate these two security policies has emerged yet, as the rising fuel price is sure to affect the food price…
