Cambodia has extracted its first drop of crude oil from its waters, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Tuesday, AFP reported. The oil was drilled from an area off the southwestern coast of Sihanoukville.

“The first drop of oil has been produced,” Hun Sen said in a Facebook post.

“The year 2021 is coming… and we have received a huge gift for our nation — the first oil production in our territory,” he added, hailing the extraction as “a new achievement for Cambodia’s economy.”

The Gulf of Thailand boasts significant oil deposits, with Chevron, the  American multinational energy corporation, first finding proven reserves off Cambodia in 2005. The production was stalled as the government and the US giant failed to reach a revenue-sharing agreement, leading the firm to sell its stake to Singapore’s KrisEnergy in 2014.

KrisEnergy currently holds a 95% stake of the block where the oil was taken from, while the government holds the rest. The company expects a peak production rate of 7,500 barrels a day from an initial phase — a modest amount compared with Cambodia’s oil-producing neighbours Vietnam and Thailand, AFP reported. 

But the revenues could be significant for the government, which estimated in 2017 that it would make at least $500 million in royalties and taxes from the first phase of the project.

The discovery of oil in 2005 led the country to be feted as the region’s next potential petro-state, with the government estimating hundreds of millions of barrels of crude were beneath its waters.

However, the discovery also raised concerns of how Cambodia — a country long ranked poorly in terms of transparency — would use its new-found wealth but Hun Sen, Asia’s longest-serving leader, dismissed them, calling the extraction “a blessing” for Cambodians.

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“It is not a curse like it has been cited by some ill-will people,” he said.