Cambodia, Thailand Look to Revive Exploration Talks

Cambodia and Thailand may begin talks for joint offshore energy exploration along their disputed sea border.

Many differences have obstructed the way of solving a lingering dispute about overlapping claims to undersea oil and natural gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand.

However, recent months have seeen improvement in ties, sparking fresh hopes that a deal can be reached to finally allow both countries to tap into the potentially rich reserves.

Cambodia says it has an estimated hundreds of millions of barrels of crude and three times as much natural gas.

Cambodia and Thailand first opened negotiations to jointly develop the disputed area in 1995, but they hit problems when ex-Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup in 2006.