For 25 years, Cambodia and Thailand have been unable to resolve a dispute over a shared area of the Gulf of Thailand, keeping one of Southeast Asia’s most promising energy opportunities out of reach. At a time of high energy costs and growing demand across the region, leaving major resources undeveloped makes little sense.
The area is believed to hold nearly 12 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and around 700 million barrels of oil. Its value has been estimated at around $300 billion. For both countries and for the region, this is an opportunity of historic scale.
Cambodia and Thailand now have a chance to turn a long-running dispute into a source of jobs, investment, energy security and social development for millions of people. Energy resources beneath the seabed have little value if they cannot be extracted for the benefit of society.
If developed responsibly, and alongside continued investment in the energy transition, the Gulf’s resources could help power factories, support businesses, strengthen social welfare and create vital opportunities for young workers.
They could also attract investment, help fund schools and hospitals, and give future generations a stronger foundation. Any discovery would provide economic and energy benefits to Cambodia, Thailand and the ASEAN region at large.
That is why Cambodia has spent 25 years trying to resolve this issue peacefully with Thailand. Further delay helps nobody. It hits ordinary citizens in both countries hardest.
Cambodia is racing toward upper-middle-income and then high-income status. That ambition requires reliable energy, stronger infrastructure, better skills and more productive industries. Cambodia is already investing heavily in that future.
The Funan Techo Canal, the new Phnom Penh airport, the expansion of the port at Sihanoukville and the Phnom Penh–Sihanoukville Expressway show a country determined to connect more effectively to regional and global markets. A peaceful maritime settlement could become part of that story. It could power growth and support the next stage of Cambodia’s transformation.
Thailand has a major stake too. A Gulf settlement would support Thailand’s competitiveness and long-term energy security, while helping both countries use resources left undeveloped for a quarter-century.
For many years, Cambodia and Thailand had a diplomatic framework for the maritime dispute. The 2001 Memorandum of Understanding, known as MoU-2001, allowed both sides to discuss the maritime boundary and potential resource development without either country conceding its claim.
MoU-2001 did not solve the dispute, but it kept open the possibility that the Gulf’s resources could one day be developed peacefully and for mutual benefit.
Thailand’s recent withdrawal from that framework was not the outcome Cambodia sought. It risks deepening the deadlock and making development harder to achieve. Without a framework, open-ended talks will not create confidence that a resolution is possible. They will not reassure investors or convince citizens that the opportunity in the Gulf is any closer to being realized.
That is why Cambodia has initiated compulsory conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This offers the best available path forward: a peaceful process that gives both countries a structured route back to serious discussion. Independent conciliators can help Cambodia and Thailand bridge differences and find common ground.
The Australia–Timor-Leste process showed that UNCLOS conciliation can move a difficult seabed resources dispute toward agreement. That kind of legal certainty is exactly what future development requires.
Private companies will not invest billions of dollars in the Gulf of Thailand without confidence that the dispute can be resolved. Governments need a process that keeps talks moving when domestic political pressure makes compromise difficult.
Citizens need assurance that these resources are protected and that any future development will benefit them. UNCLOS gives Cambodia and Thailand that path.
Thailand’s decision to appoint conciliators and participate in the UNCLOS process is welcome. Both countries now have an opportunity to work through their differences constructively while keeping the focus on a settlement that benefits both peoples.
The benefits will take time. They will require international investment and careful development. No one should pretend that energy exploration is a quick answer to every social or economic need. But the opportunity is too large to remain stuck in deadlock.
When this 25-year-old dispute is resolved, the real value of the Gulf will be measured not only by the energy it supplies and the revenues it generates but also by the thousands of jobs it creates, the schools and hospitals it funds, the businesses it develops and the millions of individual futures it helps shape.
Cambodia has chosen a peaceful legal path to resolve the maritime dispute. With both countries now in the conciliation process, the task is to use it seriously, so the Gulf of Thailand can become a lasting engine of development for the people of Southeast Asia, rather than a historic missed opportunity.
Keo Rottanak is the Minister of Mines and Energy for the Royal Government of Cambodia. He previously served as managing director of Electricité du Cambodge and has spent much of his career working to strengthen Cambodia’s energy security and long-term development and advocating for regional interconnection, particularly through the ASEAN Power Grid.
