After two and a half years, Chevron’s Cambodia country manager, Steve Glick, will move on from his position in what the oil and gas giant called a routine rotation, according to a statement released yesterday.
Glick, who came to the job in 2011, will be “taking up a new role within the company and handing over his responsibilities in Cambodia to Mr Barry Andrews in November 2013 as part of that succession plan,” Chevron spokesman Alex Yelland said yesterday in an email.
Yelland did not immediately respond to questions about whether Andrews, who was listed in media reports earlier this year as the head of Chevron in Vietnam, would work in the Cambodia office or a regional location.
Chevron has been in Cambodia for over a decade. In a 2011 interview, Glick told the Post that the company spent more than $160 million on assessing the commercial viability of extracting oil from Cambodia’s offshore block Block A, which covers 4,709 square kilometres in the Gulf of Thailand. Chevron has a 30 per cent interest in the block, according to the company’s website.
In August, 2010, Chevron determined that the level of oil reserves made the project economically viable. Prime Minister Hun Sen wanted oil to flow by the end of last year, but production has not yet commenced. Chevron officials reportedly told the government that 2016 was a more realistic target date for commercial extraction.
Since the 2010 assessment, Chevron has been working with the Cambodia National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) to obtain a production permit to begin extraction. Meanwhile, details on the project have changed very little.
“I don’t want to comment on the deadline because it is based on the company’s financial investment decision, resulting from the internal rate of return,” said Men Den, a spokesman for the CNPA, when asked about the progress of extraction from Block A.
When asked about negotiations, Chevron would not elaborate.
“We continue to work with the Royal Government of Cambodia to obtain project approvals and progress the Block A Project,” said Chevron spokesman Yelland.
