Sudanese blood spills into Asia

June 27, 2010

Following up on my expose on PETRONAS’s involvement (okay, my cut and paste on PETRONAS’s involvement), here’s some more information. Asia Times online, dateline 2010-06-25:

Far beyond America’s Gulf Coast another oil disaster has struck, but the current damage stems from allegations of possible complicity in “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. The activities in question occurred in Sudan between 1997 and 2003, with an oil consortium led by Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum at the center of a growing storm with implications potentially impacting Asia’s oil interests.

Sweden’s coverage of the story has been dominated by questions surrounding what it means for Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, a member of Lundin’s board from 2000-2006. The possibility of Bildt, Sweden’s prime minister from 1991 to 1994, being criminally prosecuted has been widely reported.

…

The ECOS report, “Unpaid Debt: The Legacy of Lundin, Petronas and OMV in Sudan, 1997-2003”, argues that “the home governments of Lundin (Sweden), Petronas (Malaysia) and OMV (Austria) have failed in their international obligations to prevent human-rights violations and international crimes”

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Higher Acceptances Received For M3nergy Takeover Offer

June 26, 2010

I’ll just pull out what I think are the pertinent paragraphs from this Bernama article, dateline 2010-06-19:

Adamus Avenue Sdn Bhd (AASB), which launched a conditional takeover of M3nergy Bhd, offering RM1.85 per share, has received over 71 per cent acceptances for the voting shares of the oil and gas services provider, as of June 19.

Companies controlled by major shareholder, Tunku Datuk Yaacob bin Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah, who owns 71.14 per cent of M3nergy, have confirmed acceptance of the conditional offer.

…

Meanwhile, it was reported that AASB is a private company owned by Datuk Shahrazi Sha’ari, who is the current Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of M3nergy.

Can you say, management buyout? We look forward to the new owner sending all their specialist process work to us.

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Pick the Right Datum

June 25, 2010

First conversation:

“will the railings be for stairs inclined at 30° or 45°?”

“Who cares? No one will notice.”

We noticed.

Railings at an angle, no camera tricks.

The second conversation

Young Client Engineer “Go fabricate the railings correctly!”

Wise Contractor “Well, we need a variance order, which will take 2 weeks, which will delay your schedule, which will need the plant GM’s approval, which will flag up your mess up to top management, ruining your perfect KPIs… Aren’t your performance appraisals happening next week? No one will notice. The stairs are still safe, aren’t they”

Client Engineer “Umm, Ok then, carry on.”

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PETRONAS unfair to Sabah?

June 25, 2010

First, the important stuff. Today is the one year anniversary demise of the King of Pop. C’mon KL, let’s roll down those car windows, and here his hits blast out across the streets! And a bit of moonwalking as well.

Back to our scheduled broadcast. A former chief minister speaks out against PETRONAS. He’s asking for a Sabahan to be appointed to the Board to look out for Sabah’s interests. Don’t know about you, but doesn’t a board of a company look out for its own interests? You would assume that Sabah will be a big contributor in the future, so if the Board was reasonably competent (and the PETRONAS senior executive team reasonably… reasonable?) Sabah’s future in the PETRONAS scheme of things is already taken care off.

Dateline 2010-06-24, though I don’t know how credible the e-newspaper is.

Kota Kinabalu: The best means of ensuring that Sabah’s interests are not ignored in Petronas’ dealings is to have a Sabahan appointed to its Board, said former Chief Minister Datuk Harris Salleh.

“It is believed that no Sabahan has been appointed by Petronas as a Board Member since its inception,” he said in a statement, Wednesday.

He said it was more timely now as “I understand Sabah is at the start of an oil boom after a string of successful discoveries of deep water fields”.

He believed the State’s deepwater projects like Kikeh, Gumusut/Kakap, Ubahcrest, Pisangan, Malikai Sumandak, Ambalak, etc, would propel Sabah to be the biggest producer of crude oil in Malaysia.

He said the projections are that Sabah is expected to produce 500,000 to 600,000 barrels per day compared to the current national production of only 700,000 barrels per day.

“This is not inclusive of (ex-Petronas Chairman) Tengku Razaleigh’s claim of a huge oil deposit found off Sabah, the biggest in South East Asia capable of producing one million barrels per day,” he said.

With the massive expected production from Sabah and from its operations since 1975, Harris presumed the State would be fully engaged in the industry, with major oil and gas infrastructures, downstream industries and activities.

…

I want an Orang Noghri (or Sumatran) to be appointed to the Board, to ensure adat pepatih is fairly represented in legal dealings.

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From AFP: Malaysia calls for measures to halt oil price fixing

June 23, 2010

Maybe someone can enlighten me how oil price fixing works?

Taken from AFP,

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Monday called for a mechanism to prevent oil price manipulation, saying high prices could derail the global economic recovery.

“In this respect, proposals for greater oversight of financial markets aimed at preventing price manipulation should be welcomed if they lead to a more efficient and robust price formation,” he told an industry gathering.

Oil prices edged to around 80 dollars a barrel last October but have fallen recently, sinking below 70 dollars in Asian trade on Monday as a weak US jobs report continued to hurt investor sentiment.

New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, fell 1.82 dollars to 69.69 dollars a barrel in morning trade.

Najib did not speculate at what range oil prices should be in his speech in Kuala Lumpur.

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From Reuters – ConocoPhillips seeks to expand in Malaysia upstream

June 22, 2010

Does ConocoPhillips want to operate oil blocks in Malaysia? They do have an office in the Twin Towers, but I believe its represents CoP’s interests in JV’s rather than operating as a PSC.

Dateline 2010-06-08, reported by Reuters:

ConocoPhillips (COP.N), the third-largest U.S. oil company by market value, is talking to national energy giant Petronas to expand its position in the upstream sector in Malaysia, a senior executive said on Tuesday.

“We are certainly looking for opportunities in Malaysia. We are talking to Petronas,” said Ryan M Lance, ConocoPhillips’ Senior Vice President, Exploration & Production, International.

“We would love to expand our position in Malaysia,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference in the Malaysian capital.

Asked what areas ConocoPhillips is targeting, he said: “Exploration oil and gas. We are always looking for good opportunities.”

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Saturday Star 2010-06-19 – Job Opportunities

June 21, 2010

Support me by purchasing my recommendations, or buying through my Amazon store.

First off, if you need my help to submit your CVs, donate to the blog, and I’ll review your CV to see if it is worthy of my (and my associates’) expectations. If you can’t figure out how to donate, no need to ask. I take it the industry’s booming again, looking at the number of ads in today’s paper.

  • There is an opening as admin staff at Synergy. We are also looking for someone with the ability and personality to fill up the position as a permanent member of the family. To balance things out, we’re focusing on competent female applicants.
  • Wow, RasGas has a 1 1/2 page spread. It’s looking for field operators (onshore), shift supervisors, panel/senior operators. Walk-in on the 23rd to 25th June 2010 here. The interviews will be held here. They are also looking for a lead integrity eng, integrity engineering specialist (pressure vessels/ piping), snr integrity eng, integrity eng, lead mech eng, snr mech eng. Interview on the 24th and 25th, same place as before. And they are also looking for snr marine eng, head of maint & reliability, maint eng – elc, maint eng – instr, head of planning (maint), maint eng specialist – machinery & reliability, maint eng specialist – support services, planning eng, planning eng specialist, head of training and comp, training specialist (planning), snr training coordinator, interface eng specialist. Again, walk-in interviews on the 23-27 June, same place. CVs to be submitted here. You can phone the local recruiters at +603 2078 1917/8. I believe RasGas is a JV, one of the partners being ExxonMobil.
  • Ranhill WorleyParsons is looking for snr cost eng, lead design mech/piping, snr design mech/piping, design mech/piping, snr mech/piping designer, snr control & automation eng, design control & automation eng, control & automation eng, lead civil structural eng, lead elect eng, design senior project eng. Hey, how come they aren’t looking for process? I assume they have more than they need at the moment. Anyhow, apply online here. (I haven’t seen a *.cgi address in a looong time. Brings back the retro feeling). Alternatively, send your CVs here.
  • Sabic has an advert. They are looking for a snr eng (process safety – Jubail), Lead occupational health (Jubail), Snr Safety Eng (Riyadh). You can apply via email here or here. Or key in your resumes online here. Login under candidate login and password at the website.
  • Murphy is looking for a deputy snr project manager, facilities project manager, tech advisor and onshore fabrication head. Send your applications here.
  • If you want to look after the JDA, there’s a position open for a business planner / analyst. Send your applications here.
  • Lundin’s looking for people a drilling superintendent, snr drilling operations engineers. Visit their site and apply here.

I still think you should get engineering books.

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From Oil & Gas Journal – Brunei, Malaysia to share revenues from disputed oil blocks

June 20, 2010

Maybe I should have gone to the recent AOGC conference, and reported the events with my own slant on things. Can I get sponsorship for the next one, for the tune of USD1000?

And if Brunei owns oil blocks, why on earth would they share the revenue? Is Malaysia going to share the revenue of our oil blocks?

Dateline 2010-06-09, from Oil & Gas Journal:

Eric Watkins, OGJ Oil Diplomacy Editor

Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman acknowledged that neighboring Brunei owns two formerly disputed oil blocks, but that Malaysia will have a share of revenue produced from them.

Aman said the revenue-sharing was made possible through a commercial arrangement agreed to in March by leaders of the two countries, but that the two sides are still discussing the ratio of the revenues to be shared.

“If we look strictly at the interpretation of the law based on [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] 1982, it clearly belongs to Brunei,” said Aman in response to a question by opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar had asked Aman to state the validity of the decision of the federal government to hand over Blocks L and M to Brunei, and why the issue of sovereignty of territorial waters of that area was not referred to the Malaysian parliament.

Earlier this year, Murphy Oil Corp.’s interests in Blocks L and M off Malaysia were terminated after resolution of a dispute with Brunei over control of the assets.

That agreement ended a dispute that erupted in 2003 when Petronas and Murphy were awarded two offshore leases, SB L and SB M. The blocks overlapped with Brunei’s Blocks J and K, which had been awarded to Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (OGJ Online, Apr. 22, 2010).

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Reader Support – Young Turks of PETRONAS

June 19, 2010

Thanks to blog reader Ahmad Izwan, I have gotten hold of 3 sets consisting of hardcopy editions of “The Young Turks of PETRONAS” and “Hang Jebat di PETRONAS.” Disclaimer: I did purchase the books.

I would seriously suggest that you get your own copies. The book documents a personal account of the creation of PETRONAS. Maybe after you read it, then any criticisms of the Company is tempered by the challenges thrown at us by Shell and Esso while Malaysia was wrestling back control of its oil.

Thanks to Datuk Haji Ismail Hashim for deigning to autograph the book. Maybe I can get a photo and interview session in the near future…

Update 2013-09-01: I have found copies of the book to sell. Look at the sidebar, or contact me.

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Memory Lane – Teluk Kalung

June 18, 2010

I don’t travel a lot to Teluk Kalung, as I don’t have any supplies stored in the KSB. When I was based in Kertih, prior to them opening the new road that bypasses Kg Teluk Kalung, you had to go past the place whenever you wanted to head south along the coast.

However, I did take the opportunity to visit the place during the past few weeks. Man, did I get lost. Also, I didn’t realise that there was a Pantai Teluk Kalung.

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