Phnom Penh (VNA) – International companies are seeking licenses to explore oil and gas off Cambodia ’s coast following new reports concerning the country’s huge oil and gas resources with reserves reaching nearly 2 billion barrels of crude oil and 10 billion cubic metres of gas.

The AsiaNews.Net said that the companies involved come mainly from Australia , China , France , Japan , Kuwait , Malaysia , the Republic of Korea , and Singapore . The US energy giant Chevron Corp. has invested 100 million USD in drilling 14 wells in an area called Block A off Cambodia’s coast and gets around 800 barrels of crude oil a day.

The United Nations, the World Bank, the US Harvard University and several research institutes estimated that with such oil and gas reserves, the oil industry will bring about 6 billion USD a year for Cambodia’s national budget in the next two decades.-Enditem