Cambodia — Prime Minister Orders Complete Halt of Fuel and Gas Imports from Thailand

Mechanism

Prime Minister Hun Manet announced the import halt via a public statement on the evening of 22 June 2025: "Starting from midnight tonight, all fuel and gas imports from Thailand will be halted." The order covers all categories of petroleum products and LPG imported from Thailand, and took effect at 00:00 on 23 June 2025. It was issued as executive direction from the Office of the Prime Minister rather than through a published decree/prakas, consistent with how Cambodia's government has handled other rapid-response measures during the 2025 border crisis (e.g., the provincial-level ban on Thai fruit and vegetable imports announced 17-18 June 2025).

The halt followed, on the same day, Hun Manet's order to close two Cambodia-Thailand land border checkpoints — itself a response to the Thai military's unilateral adjustment of checkpoint operating hours despite bilateral calls for negotiation.

Context: border-conflict escalation sequence

The fuel halt is one step in a rapidly escalating sequence of trade and border measures between Cambodia and Thailand following the killing of a Cambodian soldier in the disputed "Emerald Triangle" area (where the Cambodia-Laos-Thailand borders meet) in May 2025:

• Mid-June 2025: provincial authorities on the Thai border begin blocking imports

of Thai fruit and vegetables.

• 22 June 2025: Hun Manet orders closure of two border checkpoints.
• 22 June 2025 (this action): Hun Manet orders a complete halt of fuel and gas

imports from Thailand, effective 23 June 2025.

Thai state energy company PTT was named in press coverage as the most exposed Thai supplier, with Cambodia previously one of its top-ten overseas markets by volume. Cambodian officials publicly downplayed the risk of domestic shortages, citing existing import relationships with Vietnam, Singapore, and other regional suppliers.

Downstream implications

• PTT and other Thai fuel exporters lose a market worth an estimated USD 1.5 billion

(2.3 billion litres, ~20% of Thailand's total fuel exports) in the prior year, pending resolution of the border dispute.

• Cambodian fuel importers accelerate diversification toward Vietnamese, Singaporean,

and Malaysian suppliers, likely at a near-term logistics/cost premium versus the overland/short-haul Thai supply chain.

• The halt raises enforcement risk around informal cross-border fuel smuggling,

which Hun Manet separately targeted with threatened licence revocations — suggesting the government anticipated leakage around the formal ban.

• Sets a precedent for economic-coercion tools (energy trade) being used alongside

military and diplomatic escalation in the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute.

Open questions

• Whether the halt persisted following the July-August 2025 armed clashes and

subsequent ceasefire, or was quietly relaxed/reversed once tensions eased.

• Whether Thailand imposed any reciprocal trade measures against Cambodia.
• Scale of realised fuel-smuggling enforcement actions (licence revocations,

prosecutions) under the parallel anti-smuggling order.