I was going to solicit y’all’s help to help me out here, but the IEM beat me to it.
Jabba’s gonna have a field day on this one.
IEM Council Wata
Anyhow, I’ll be at Technip tomorrow (Friday, 2009-02-26) to give a talk on the Road to be a Professional Engineer.
10 Comments | 
engineering | Tagged: IEM | 
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Posted by Wata
When I was a lad, one of the first things I was taught in fluid mechanics was the hydraulic jump. Though I have not met any use for the theory in my professional life (how many offshore O&G assets have channels rather than piping), I still know theory.
Anyhow, I met a nice example of hydraulic jumps while messing about at Desa Water Park.
You can see a Photosynth of some of the park’s attractions here.
Leave a Comment » | engineering | Tagged: Desa Water Park, Photosynth | Permalink
Posted by Wata
Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:
None.
Hey, is the oil & gas industry in Malaysia in really bad shape, you wonder
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Posted by Wata
As part of Synergy’s cost cutting measures, we are going through all our basement cupboards, and seeing what can be used in the new company. This is an example of the hard hats we will issue to new grunts:
There used to be a Malaysian company called Protech that was one of the Umbrella Design Contractors (UDC, there’s a story in itself).
Now, my memory get hazy, and I wasn’t particularly interested at the time, but I believe they were bought by Stork, and the local company became Stork Protech. Eventually, Stork Protech sold the local company to Technip, and S P disappeared of the face of Malaysia.
Stork Protech does still exist, though.
Any old timers want to elaborate on this story?
And who know what other age tested equipment we’ll find? Maybe is can convert a SCBA kit to a scuba system.
5 Comments | engineering | Permalink
Posted by Wata
An interesting topic. So interesting that I’m going refer to the sources here and here, but quote verbatim as well.
BTW, the price of gasoline in the US (2009-02-16), according to my calculation method, is Rm1.85/liter.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry Domestic Trade Division Senior Director Ismail Ahmad has revealed to all how the price of petrol and diesel at the pump is calculated in Malaysia.
The formula used to calculate the price of fuel is called the Automatic Pricing Mechanism (in place since 1983) and its function is to stabilize the price of petrol and diesel in the country to a certain extent, via a variable amount sales tax and subsidy, so the retail price only has to be changed if the difference in price exceeds the threshold of the tax and subsidy, at the discretion of the government.
In the table on the left, you can see that the Cost Of Product is not derived from the price of Crude Oil on the NYMEX, but it is based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS). The cost is the already refined product, which means the refinery cost are already included and indexed in the MOPS.
You may ask what exactly is the MOPS? Many countries in this region base their fuel prices on the MOPS, including alot of ASEAN countries and even Australia. The index is tracked, assessed and updated by Platts, a McGraw-Hill company in Singapore and is based on the daily average of all trading transactions between buyer and seller of petroleum-based products.
A buyer of a finished (refined) oil product will refer to the MOPS index as a better indicator/benchmark of world prices rather than crude oil prices. The MOPS price typically has a premium over the crude oil prices. This is why the Malaysian government uses MOPS to determine fuel prices rather than NYMEX crude oil prices. Unfortunately it is hard to track MOPS prices as individuals because the data is only available to those who purchase it, unlike the publicly available charts from the NYMEX.
Next up is “Alpha”, which is fixed at 5 sen per liter for petrol and 4 sen per liter for diesel. This is sort of a buffer for the oil companies. If the price of the product that the oil companies buy is higher than the MOPS published price, and the difference is higher than Alpha, the oil company will bear the extra cost, and vice versa.
Operational costs should be self explanatory. They are set at 9.54 sen per liter, 8.98 sen per liter and 8.13 sen per liter for the Peninsular, Sabah and Sarawak respectively. Operational costs cover transport and marketing costs. Then comes where the oil companies make money, which is set at 5 sen per liter for petrol and 2.25 sen per liter for diesel. The stations make more money
per liter of petrol – 12.19 sen per liter for petrol and 7 sen per liter for diesel.Sales tax and subsidies are combined. According to the Sales Tax Act 1972 (this is not something new!), the government CAN collect a maximum sales tax of 58.62 sen per liter for petrol and 19.64 sen per liter for diesel. This comes into effect when the real price of petrol and diesel at the pumps are lower than the fixed retail price. The government can pocket this, or it can revise the fixed fuel price to be lower to remove the difference in price so the savings go into the rakyat’s pocket.
On the other hand, if the fixed retail price is lower than the actual cost of the petrol and diesel at the pumps, the government can pay a subsidy of the same range. Right now the government says it will give a maximum subsidy of 30 sen per liter instead of the maximum allowable subsidy of 58.62 sen per liter, IF NEEDED. This 30 sen maximum subsidy is as part of an improved Automatic Pricing Mechanism, which the Ismail Ahmad says is designed to stabilize fuel retail prices and allow industry players to manage expenditure in a more orderly manner.
So, if you are trying to figure out how crude oil price and pump prices are related, they are disconnected by the use of MOPS.
11 Comments | engineering | Tagged: diesel price, petrol price | Permalink
Posted by Wata
First off, indications are that the Malaysian oil & gas industry is being hit hard by the recession. So, if there are adverts in the papers, expect that only the brightest (and cheapest) will be offered jobs.
Another week, another scan of the Saturday Star newspaper. Here’s a list of job ads in the paper:
Sigh, since I have moved with Synergy out of KL, will you patronise Chee Meng in my memory? Or invite me to meetings around Bukit Bintang at lunchtime?
Leave a Comment » | engineering, oil and gas | Tagged: Delcom, First Solar, MMHE, SapuraCrest, Solar, Synergy | Permalink
Posted by Wata
Nice to see that a trade association is working to make funds available to the O&G industry. We hope that the spill off gives the little player incentive to continue contributing to the national coffers. Dateline Feb 13, 2009 from The Star:
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Oil & Gas Services Council (MOGSC) is urging financial institutions to free up credit to oil and gas (O&G) support services players to ensure that O&G activities do not diminish in the current economic downturn.
President Sofiyan Yahya said if there was a contraction in credit, O&G support services players would have difficulty in executing their projects, thus affecting business and industry growth.
“Execution will be a concern if there is a lack of financing as we have projects in hand and investment outlay has been planned for the next couple of years.”
You can subscribe to an online version of the paper at the Bluehyppo site, follow links to e-browse.
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Posted by Wata
We are currently going through a rash of interviews now, getting more people to hitch their wagon to the Synergy star, and come along for the ride.
We need to determine the quality of the applicants who want to work in our intense work environment, ambiance provided by Jabba. I really want to ask the question (to a chemical engineer):
So, how do you transform a 60Hz AC supply to a 50Hz AC supply?
I’m a chemical engineer by birth, but even I know the answer. What I DON’T want to hear is:
Well, the difference between the two is negative 10Hz, right? So, if you spin the user 10Hz in the negative direction, you get 50Hz lah.
If I get that type of answer, I’ll spin the applicant negative 10 Hz.
C’mon elect engineers, give me the answer in the comments. I’ll take even weirder answers.
30 Comments | engineering, oil and gas | Tagged: Protech, Stork, Synergy | Permalink
Posted by Wata
Quoting from the Malaysian Insider,
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 – A worsening ownership battle for a planned Malaysian bunkering facility to rival Singapore’s is threatening to derail the project and could hurt one of the country’s largest commercial banks.
The project to build a bunkering depot on a reclaimed island in Johor is being led by a little-known private company called KIC Oil and Gas, which has so far drawn down nearly half of its RM1.4 billion (S$584 million) financing facility from state-controlled CIMB to fund construction work.
But KIC’s failure to resolve problems with another key shareholder of the project, Seaport Terminal, which owns two of Johor’s main ports including Tanjung Pelepas, has prompted CIMB to consider suspending further funding for the construction of the bunkering facility, government officials and financial executives said.
I’ve had some dealings with KIC in the past, and I have actually been on their bunkering ship in the past. Interesting place, you can actually get 3 countries’ cellphone networks onboard (Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore). And I used to have a few friends in the place, who have now spread out.
Another KIC article here.
2 Comments | engineering | Tagged: CIMB, KIC | Permalink
Posted by Wata
In anticipation of RON 95 being sold at the same price as RON 92, during my travels I did discover that RON 92 is being sold in the less metropolitan parts of the country at RM1.70/liter.
PETRONAS - ROn 92
Here are a few synths of the resort (here, here and here) I stayed which was near the RON 92 station. Visit Photosynth for more fun.
Leave a Comment » | engineering | Tagged: petrol price, Petronas, RON | Permalink
Posted by Wata
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Wata - Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer 