From Rueters – PETRONAS says to maintain govt payouts

Taken from Rueters, dateline 2009-12-16:

Malaysia’s state oil company PETRONAS [PETR.UL] will maintain its annual 30 billion ringgit ($8.79 billion) dividends to the government despite prospects of weaker profits and significant investment outlays in Iraq.

Malaysia is facing its largest budget deficit in more than 20 years. It currently depends on Petronas for nearly half of government revenue.

The Edge Financial daily quoted Petronas President and Chairman Hassan Marican as saying the company’s profits for financial year ending in March 2010 will not be as good as last year because prices and sales volumes were down.

This probably came about from the (wishy-washy) government’s fear of upsetting the people, as an article from The Star, dateline 2009-12-10 said:

Lower oil prices will limit royalty to Government

PETALING JAYA: Lower crude oil prices that hit Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (PETRONAS) bottomline hard this year are likely to limit the national oil firm’s ability to repeat the huge payout to the Government last year.

Recent official statements indicated that Petronas’ petroleum payments to the Government are expected to fall between 14% and 19% in the financial year ending March 31, 2010 (FY10) to between RM60bil and RM64bil.

From Upstreamonline.com: PETRONAS founder heads royalty probe

Taken from upstreamonline.com, deadline Wed 25th Nov (original article source here):

The founding chairman of PETRONAS, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has agreed to head a Parliamentary Caucus mooted by Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to redistribute oil royalties from the federal government to the state authorities.

PR leader Anwar Ibrahim said Razaleigh had accepted the invitation in the Parliament this morning.

The Caucus aims to draft amendments to the Petroleum Development Act to ensure that oil-producing states — including opposition-controlled Kelantan — receive royalties in line with the philosophy that constituted the Act in 1974, the Malaysian Insider reported.

And if you want Ku Li’s views, here’s a sample taken from his blog.

Me? I’ll enter politics when corruption makes it worth my while.

IEM Shout Out – Maximising Value Creation Through Value Improvement Program

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will hosting the above seminar on the 21st November. It’ll be at 9:30 am (makan-makan at 9:00) at Wisma IEM. That’s right people, as part of the new health drive you are required to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get your 2 CPD points.

This presentation outlines the techniques and process for achieving such optimisation by presenting case studies of five Value Improvement Program (VIP) in Petronas operating unit. This covers oil, gas and petrochemical businesses. Improvement opportunities were identified throughout the complexes with the feedstock interface yielding the largest profit gains. The program continues, but to date more than 50 opportunities have been implemented, from which the benefits has exceeded RM 50 million.

Lots of interesting monetary figures being bandied about in the blurb. Come and listen, and see if the speaker walks the talk.

The talk will be led by En. M. Taufik bin Mokhtar. En. Taufik obtained his masters degree from Imperial College, London, UK. En Taufik has 9 years of working experience in Petronas. His work experience includes plant operations and project management and provision of technical support services. He has led Value Improvement Program in various PETRONAS operating units and has helped the implementation of the program in five different plants in Kertih and Kuantan areas with success. Currently, En. Taufik is Staff Engineer in Group Technology Solutions, Research and Technology Division of PETRONAS.

Fliers for the above and other events may be obtained here. A map to Wisma IEM is presented here. It’s the building identified as ‘Puteri Nursing College.’

PETRONAS Corporate Anthem

Ah, found one of the best kept secrets in PETRONAS, its theme song. As taken from here:

PETRONAS MAJU JAYA

KEMEGAHAN NEGARA KITA

SEMERBAK NAMA SELURUH DUNIA

PETRONAS MAJU JAYA

 

CITA RAKYAT KAMI PEGANG TEGUH

AMANAH NEGARA DIPATUH

KAMI USAHA SETULUS HATI

CEKAL TABAH IKRAR KAMI

 

KAMI BERJUANG BERGANDING BAHU

ERAT MUAFAKAT BERSATU PADU

MOHON RESTU ALLAH YANG ESA

MALAYSIA MAKMUR SEJAHTERA

 

PETRONAS MAJU JAYA

KEMEGAHAN NEGARA KITA

SEMERBAK NAMA SELURUH DUNIA

PETRONAS MAJU JAYA!!!

 

Now for the other two: TM and TNB.

From the Star – Petronas awards two offshore contracts

From the Star, dateline 2009-10-27 (I’ve been away, okay?):

PETALING JAYA: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) awarded two production sharing contracts (PSCs) for Block SB309 and Block SB310 offshore Sabah with an estimated minimum financial commitment of US$75mil and US$117mil respectively yesterday.

In a statement, Petronas said the PSCs were awarded to a partnership between its exploration and production arm Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd and Talisman Energy Inc’s wholly owned subsidiary, Talisman Malaysia Ltd.

Talisman Energy is a global, diversified, upstream oil and gas company headquartered in Canada.

Under the terms of the PSCs, Talisman Malaysia, with participating interest of 70% in each block, will operate both blocks.

…

Here’s something to follow up in the year, ooh maybe 2012 (3 years exploration rights, I assume).

And why does everyone spell PETRONAS with lower case? Non-O&G reporters…

 

Malaysia – President Of International Gas Union

Taken from the pages of the Star, dateline 2009-10-11:

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has taken over the presidency of the International Gas Union (IGU) with Datuk Dr Abdul Rahim Hashim of PETRONAS filling the top post until 2012.

Dr Abdul Rahim, who is PETRONAS’ research technology vice-president, is also Malaysian Gas Association (MGA) president.

For those of you not in the know, Datuk Dr. Abdul Rahim was VP, Gas Business Unit, PETRONAS.

What does the IGU do, you wonder? From the IGU’s web pages, it’s objective is to “promote the technical and economic progress of the gas industry.”

PCSB-PMO Open House 2009

Dropping by at the Kompleks Operasi Petronas (KOP) on Sunday, 11th Oct, 2009 (yes, I do work on Sundays), I noticed that PCSB has quite the community spirit.

IEM Shout Out – Emerging Technologies to Monetize Small Natural Gas Resources

This is a shout out for the IEM. My Technical Division will be having a talk on Saturday 10th October, 2009. It’ll be at 9:00 am (makan-makan at 11:00) at Wisma IEM. That’s right people, as part of the new health drive you are required to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get your 2 CPD points.

The number of large natural gas fields for mankind’s exploitation is reducing as we go into the future. Future natural gas fields are relatively smaller, scattered in various geographical locations and contains higher acidic components. As the world’s energy demand continues, there is an urgent need to develop emerging technologies to monetize small natural gas resources around the globe which could not be economically carried out now.

The above will be presented by  Dr. Ir. Chan Tuck Leong, is a Chemical Engineer graduated from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. He is currently the Head of Gas Technology in the gas business of the national oil company. His responsibility covers assessment of emerging gas monetization technology for commercialization and exploitation of small gas reserves.

Fliers for the above and other events may be obtained here.

From the Star – Pertamina, PETRONAS

Dateline 2009-09-12 taken from the Star:

(PT) Pertamina and partner PETRONAS Carigali Overseas Sdn Bhd, a unit of Petroliam National Bhd., won the rights to jointly develop West Glagah Kambuna block of the coast of Sumatra…

Star - Pertamina PETRONAS

Hey, a sign of cooperation during these trying times for Malaysia-Indonesia relationships (I blame the Discovery Channel).

You can subscribe to an online version of the paper at the Bluehyppo site, follow links to e-browse.

And Patrick Swayze passed away this week.

Optimal – A Fully PETRONAS Company

I can’t find this news on any Malaysian news site. I first read about it in the TCE:

TO further ease its debts, Dow Chemical has agreed to sell its stake in Optimal to Malaysian partner Petronas for $660m.

 I pulled an extract from Project Finance International (subscribers only):

Dow has recently sold its entire stake in Malaysia-based Optimal Group of Companies to Petroliam Nasional (PETRONAS).

From Optimal’s history page, there are only two investors, UCC (now part of DOW) and PETRONAS.

I remember when Optimal was sucking up the Kerteh workforce with higher pay and better compensation. They opened up an international school in Kerteh, to cater for the (highly paid) expats who came in for the first 2 years. They also closed the school when the expats left, so you know it wasn’t meant as a service to local staff, even those who could afford it.

So, does this mean that the current Optimal salary, wages and benefits (SWB) will be in line with the rest of PETRONAS? Is there going to be an exodus of talent from Optimal to … don’t think there are other high-paying jobs around the KIPP (Kawasan Industry Petroliam PETRONAS), so we’ll see another exodus overseas.