Thailand’s PTT considers taking stake in Malaysia gas facility

August 24, 2017

Dateline 2017-07-20, The Star:

Thailand’s state-owned oil and gas giant PTT Plc is considering taking a stake in a natural gas liquefaction plant to be built in Malaysia, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

The PTT board will on Friday consider the project, to be built with Malaysia’s Petronas, making a decision on the size of any potential stake, the spokesman added.

That came after the Bangkok Post on Wednesday cited Wirat Uanarumit, chief operating officer of PTT’s upstream petroleum and gas business, as saying that the company was looking to hold a 10% stake in the new facility.

Petronas did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.


IEM Shout Out – 2017-11 Two Day Course on Integrating Operational Perspective for Cohesive Design of Plant And Building Facilities

August 23, 2017

My technical division will be hosting a 2 day course on the 25th and 26th October 2017. It is worth 6.5 CPD points, and held at Wisma IEM. The course will be presented by Ir. Danaraj Chandrasegaran and Ir. Al-Khairi Mohd Daud.

Systematic approaches are elaborated in this course during early design phase to create better solutions and reducing modification works throughout the facilities life. This two-day course is designed to help you develop skills that will enhance your engineering delivery to your project and improving the human part of it.

As a great deal of class time will be spent in a variety of interactive formats, active participation is essential

Ir. Danaraj Chandrasegaran P.Eng MIEM CEng MIMechE. He is a Chartered Engineer and has honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Technology Malaysia. He also holds a MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Malaya. He also presently a committee member with The Institution of Engineers Malaysia and Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK) Malaysia Chapter.

Since starting his career as a Mechanical Engineer, Ir. Danaraj has had a varied service; both in front line project execution as well as in technical, training, and management functions. His career has a diverse outlook on project execution ranging from building construction, marine, mining and energy industry; as a mechanical engineer. He has worked on several large-scale projects worldwide such as Shell Malikai TLP and Barzan Offshore Project. In addition, had delivered many projects successfully collaborating with vendors and subcontractors alike.

Ir. Al-Khairi Mohd Daud P.Eng, PEM, C Eng, CPSI, MIEM, MMEPA, MMSQH, REEM has nearly 25 years of engineering experience in both project and maintenance of various plants and facilities such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants, petrochemical and oleo chemical plants, manufacturing, high end R&D and medical centre facilities. Amongst his accomplishment was the development, testing & commissioning and operation of InventQjaya Sdn Bhd, an advance research facilities in Cyberjaya and Prince Court Medical Centre Sdn Bhd (PCMC) a 300-bed hospital owned by PETRONAS. Due to this experience, Ir Al-Khairi has been appointed as certified surveyor and trainer with Malaysian Society for Quality in Health (MSQH). He has contributed to the drafting of MSQH standard 5th Edition 2016. He is also being appointed to Medical Device Authority (MDA) competencies expert panels, authorized engineer and trainer on Medical Gas Piping System (MGPS). In energy efficiency, Ir Al-Khairi is the country expert for ASEAN Energy Management Accreditation Scheme (AEMAS) where he is the chief assessor and trainer for the program. He is also a Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) with NRPA, USA.

Ir Al-Khairi is a member with Institute of Asset Management, UK. He is the past Chairman for Oil, Gas & Mining Technical Division and a member of Building Services Technical Division for the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM). He is the Chief Consultant for Faqeh Management, a company that he formed to provide asset, facilities and energy management. He has conducted various facilities and energy audit for airports, offices buildings, healthcare facilities, manufacturing, process plants. He is also involved as data center planner and assessors.

Register here, or download the form here.


Gas Malaysia raises natural gas prices

August 22, 2017

Dateline 2017-07-14, The Star:

Gas Malaysia Bhd has revised up the natural gas tariff for Peninsular Malaysia’s non-power sector to an average base tariff of RM28.05 per MMBtu (one million British thermal units).

However, a government subsidy will lead to lower effective tariff rates for all tariff categories for the period from July 1 to Dec 31, 2017, compared with the existing rates.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the gas distributor said  the Government, through the Energy Commission, had approved on Friday for Gas Malaysia to effect the revision for the six-month period.

The Government has prescribed the incentive based regulation (IBR) framework, which sets the base tariffs for a period of three years from January 2017 and allows changes in the gas costs to be passed through via the Gas Cost Pass Through (GCPT) mechanism every six months.

 


Saturday Star 2017-08-19 – Job Opportunities

August 21, 2017

Happy APCChE bidding week. IGL has pivoted into training, so book your seats now.

We’re thinking of republishing Young Turks of PETRONAS, but it’s a minimum 500 book printing run. Do I have enough interested persons to purchase?

Donate to your favorite charity (me), buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Or get the Young Turks series (3 books until I can get YTP republished). Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me, my camera dive case flooded, and I need a new replacement. Heck, if you want to send me a Canon 5D Mk III plus dive case, I will not say no.

  • I have a feeling that The Star isn’t the preferred O&G job recruitment portal now, and they have moved adverts to another online presence (I bought a dead tree edition this week). I see more adverts via social media. What do you think, is it a step change that the papers need to embrace?
  • I’m looking for jobs for 4Q2017. Send me your POs.

Food choice of the week? Mango Shake at Masjid an-Naim, Sura Jetty, Dungun.

Book choice of this week, Chemical Engineering Process Simulation, authors are Nishanth Chemmangattuvalappil Denny Ng Kok Sum Rafil Elyas Cheng-Liang ChenI,Lung Chien Hao-Yeh Lee. I intend to get a signed first edition, and place it in my Charles Dickens first edition cabinet.


What happens to petrol stations when oil prices go down

August 20, 2017

Dateline 2017-07-13, FMT:

Petrol businesses operate at a loss whenever oil prices go down, with some of them forced to shut down as they are unable to cope with the fluctuating prices every week.

The Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia (PDAM) said since the implementation of the monthly fuel pricing mechanism in December 2014, petrol station operators have found it difficult to finish off their oil stocks.

PDAM president Khairul Annuar said since 2014, between 30 and 40 petrol stations had been forced to cease operations due to their inability to cope with the losses.

“And now there’s a new weekly pricing mechanism. As a result, petrol station operators are feeling the pinch really badly,” he told FMT.


Malaysia’s oil and gas industry on the road to recovery

August 19, 2017

Will you be driving down the road, or be decorative roadkill?

Dateline 2017-07-12, The Star:

There is optimism that the nation’s oil and gas industry is on the road to recovery, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

“If 2016 was the ‘year of tough decisions’ for the oil and gas industry, then 2017 could well be the year for the road to recovery,” he said when launching the 16th Oil and Gas Asia 2017 Exhibition.

He cited the examples of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ market forecast and recent survey by Reuters that Brent crude oil could average US$58.20 (RM250.12) per barrel this year as examples of positive signs for the industry.

“The interim Q4 (fourth quarter) and FY (financial year) of Malaysia’s state giant Petronas noted a 12% year-on-year growth in profit after tax despite revenues that were some 17% lower,” he said.

He added that Petronas had taken measures to reduce capital investment by 22% while cutting “controllable costs” by 8% last year.


Oil, Gas and Energy sector to see five per cent annual growth till 2020

August 18, 2017

Dateline 2017-07-11, NST:

Malaysia’s Oil, Gas and Energy (OGE) sector is targeted to grow five per cent annually until the year 2020.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the government had mapped out various policies and incentives to spearhead the growth of the OGE sector as it is one of the key result areas in the ongoing Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).

“And as part of the ETP that will propel Malaysia forward into a truly developed nation, the OGE sector is targeting a five per cent annual growth until 2020.

“Entry Points Projects such as Enhanced Oil Recovery, regional storage solutions, and unlocking of premium gas demand among others, are targeted to contribute RM131 billion in incremental Gross National Income, and generate about 52,000 jobs by 2020.

Zahid was speaking at the 16th Asian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Engineering Exhibition 2017 before launching the event.

 


Malaysia’s petroleum and natural gas sector posts 12.5pc annual growth for 2010-2015, says statistics dept

August 17, 2017

Dateline 2017-07-10, Malay Mail:

Malaysia’s petroleum and natural gas industry has registered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5 per cent from 2010 to 2015, with the number of establishments engaged in the industry rising to 157 from 87 over the period, said the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoS).

In a statement today, it said the value of gross output amounted to RM120.4 billion compared with RM105.9 billion in 2010 (CAGR: 2.6 per cent).

“Extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas group recorded the largest value of RM108.9 billion, contributing 90.4 per cent, while support activities for petroleum and natural gas extraction group registered RM11.5 billion in 2015 (9.6 per cent),” it said.

 


Diving – Tenggol 2017

August 16, 2017

Venturing upstream through Petros

August 15, 2017

Historical, but hey. Though, my memories of state owned industries being successful is not that great. And I would be more interested in the O&G roadshow. And the PSC terms for Petros.

Dateline 2017-07-05, Borneo Post online:

The state-owned oil and gas (O&G) company is expected to commence operations early next year.

According to Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg, ‘Petroleum Sarawak’ – or Petros – is going to be ‘100 per cent owned’ by the state government, which would then work together with national petroleum company Petronas.

“Hopefully, the name (Petroleum Sarawak) is OK – nobody will be using that name, Petros.

“The company is expected to be in operations within six month because we must get our side ready for us to get involved in the upstream oil and gas activities,” he told reporters after the launch of Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) roadshow here yesterday.

Abang Johari, who is also in-charge of Sarawak O&G, said at the moment the state does not have its own company that solely looks after upstream operations.