A tanker company says it is concerned over its arrested crew’s human rights as Cambodia pursues the return of some 300,000 barrels of allegedly stolen crude oil, but the government said the matters will simply “take their legal course” and are “neither political nor commercial.”
The Indonesian navy has seized an oil tanker that allegedly stole 290,000 barrels of crude oil from Cambodia and KrisEnergy, AFP reported on Wednesday.
In a long-planned ceremony, Defense Minister Tea Banh presented Cambodia’s first drop of oil, extracted from deep under the sea at the country’s offshore Apsara oil field, less than a week after the company behind the project announced liquidation amid financial woes.
Cambodia’s first oil field is estimated to produce only a “small fraction” of expected oil, according to an independent review, putting its developer, KrisEnergy, in further financial peril, the company said.
While Cambodia has aspired to draw its first oil since deposits were discovered off the coast in 2004, an oil field licensee has missed another production deadline and now faces a global slowdown in oil and gas exploration.
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