The International Monetary Fund(IMF) has predicted Cambodia could earn 174 million U.S. dollars from oil production in 2011, with the windfall rising to 1.7 billion U.S. dollars after 10 years, said the latest issue of the Phnom Penh Post published this weekend.

The IMF said in its new report that 2011 is a realistic date to assume that U.S. oil giant Chevron would begin production given that oil is already produced on both sides of Cambodia's waters in the gulf of Thailand, the newspaper said.

It projected that after 10 years of production Cambodia's share of oil revenues would peak in 2021 at 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. Then revenues would begin to decline.

The IMF called the report a "moderate scenario", which was based on a variety of assumptions, such as oil production sharing agreements, size of recoverable resources and oil prices.

The Cambodian government's current revenues are 11.5 percent of current GDP, or 632 million U.S. dollars, so an additional 174 million U.S. dollars in new revenues from a new source is a significant windfall, the newspaper said.