Saturday Star 2015-02-21 – Job Opportunities

February 23, 2015

Happy Happy Week. Buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Or get the Young Turks series (all 4 books). Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me.

  • I hear Hess is looking for a number of metering and measurement engineers. Heck, I should be a shoe in.
  • Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Company (KPOC to friends) has an itty-bitty spread. Operations is looking onshore and offshore operations, project engineer (mechanical), offshore installation manager, production supervisor. Apply here, or snail mail to: Kebabangan Petroleum Operating Comp Sdn Bhd, Level 52, Tower 2, PETRONAS Twin Towers, KLCC, 50088 KL, Malaysia.

Support your local bookshop!  Bookalicious at The Summit Subang is a good choice. I think they focus on trilogies, quadrilogies, and other ologies. Tell them I sent you, and enjoy the look of perplexity on their faces. Those of you who have dropped my name, thanks!

Food choice of the week? How if you visit Vietnam, how about visiting and updating GoHalalVietnam! for your food needs. For your other needs, talk to your local tour guide/ concierge / man on the street.

As crude prices are low, you need all the help you can get to nail that elusive 2k job:

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security


Highest and Cheapest Gasoline Prices by Country

February 22, 2015

Dateline 2014-12-02, Bloomberg:

Malaysia

Price per gallon of gasoline: $2.48
Rank by most expensive gas: 54
Rank by pain at the pump: 35

Malaysia’s extensive fuel subsidies give it one of the lowest gasoline prices.

Cheap gas comes at a cost; despite strong economic growth, Fitch Ratings lowered the country’s credit rating last year. Soon after the rating drop, Prime Minister Najib Razak cut the fuel subsidy. He cut it again in October.

Even though gas remains cheap, the subsidy cuts are sending inflation ripples through the economy. Consumer prices are forecast to climb 4 percent to 5 percent next year, the fastest since 2008.

…


Malaysia Crudely Treated By Oil Slump

February 21, 2015

Dateline 2014-12-02, Barron’s:

Malaysia may have just set itself up for a major oil shock.

That may seem a long shot as crude prices plummet. But Malaysia is one of Asia’s few remaining net oil exporters and last month it made the decision to scrap subsidies on diesel and unleaded gasoline and instead set their prices more or less in line with market prices beginning this month.

Markets appear to have ignored this watershed. Global investors may not know a lot about Malaysia, but they do know it’s a major commodities exporter whose economy is slowing with exports and whose government depends on oil-related income for 30% of its annual revenues. Stocks in Kuala Lumpur fell as much as 2.3%, the biggest tumble in almost two years, to the lowest since late-October. Government bonds fell, too. Malaysia’s currency, the ringgit, slid as much as 1.4% against the U.S. dollar to its lowest since early 2010.

…


Fuel subsidy removal ‘brilliant’ move OR political opportunism: What when oil prices move up?

February 20, 2015

Answer: Reality move. When we gonna get better utilization of the petroleum products we have? Me thinking reliable WAN mass public transportation, legislation of tiffin boxes vs. itty bitty plastic bags (we still need the big ones for trash), nuclear plant next to the residences of our DUN critters.

Dateline 2014-11-29, Malaysia Chronicle:

AFTER so much hesitation in the past due mainly to fears about its political impact, the government took the entire nation by complete surprise last Friday by removing subsidies on the RON95 fuel and diesel.

Their retail prices will from Dec 1 be set by using the managed float system.

This means that from Monday, consumers will enjoy the benefits from any fall in the price of global crude oil, something we have not been getting for the past 31 years when the retail price of petroleum products in Malaysia has largely either remained static or gone up.

…


Malaysia’s Petronas Q3 profit falls 12.4 pct on weak oil prices

February 19, 2015

Dateline 2014-11-29, Hellenic Shipping News:

Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas), Malaysia’s state oil company, reported on Friday a 12.4 percent fall in third-quarter profit on weakness in oil prices, the U.S. dollar and liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales.

Net profit totalled 15.07 billion ringgit ($4.45 billion) in July-September from 17.2 billion ringgit a year earlier, Petronas said in a statement. Revenue declined marginally to 80.4 billion ringgit.

Excess oil and gas supplies, sluggish energy demand and slowing global growth will mean earnings in the fourth quarter will be even lower, Chief Financial Officer George Ratilal told reporters after the results.

…

 


Umrah 2014

February 18, 2015

If you were wondering where I was.

And the obligatory photosynths are here, here, here.


Managing a crisis of national proportions: Petronas speaks up

February 17, 2015

Dateline 2014-11-28, Advertising + Marketing:

Petronas occupies a unique position in the oil and gas industry. Owned by the Malaysian government, it is tasked with the country’s oil and gas resources, and is the national oil and gas company (NOC), apart from also being an international oil and gas company (IOC). The company was recently positioned as the world’s sixth most profitable Fortune 500 company in the oil and gas space.

This renders the communications role for Petronas a high-stakes one, and a relatively complicated one at that. Stakeholder relations is core to its communications, over any other forms.

…


Saturday Star 2015-02-14 – Job Opportunities

February 16, 2015

Happy Happy Week. Buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Or get the Young Turks series (all 4 books). Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me.

  • Nothing this week. I hear that the layoffs from the big umbrella contractors is continuing.

Support your local bookshop!  Bookalicious at The Summit Subang is a good choice. I think they focus on trilogies, quadrilogies, and other ologies. Tell them I sent you, and enjoy the look of perplexity on their faces. Those of you who have dropped my name, thanks!

Food choice of the week? How if you visit Vietnam, how about visiting and updating GoHalalVietnam! for your food needs. For your other needs, talk to your local tour guide/ concierge / man on the street.

As crude prices are low, you need all the help you can get to nail that elusive 2k job:

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security


Malaysia’s Petronas to Review Spending as Oil Prices Slide

February 15, 2015

Dateline 2014-11-28, WSJ:

Malaysia’s national oil-and-gas company Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, said Friday it is reviewing its spending plans for next year after reporting a 14% decline in third-quarter net profit on falling crude prices, even as it increased output.

Petronas, the Southeast Asian country’s sole Fortune 500 company and most profitable enterprise, may cut spending between 15% and 20% of its capital expenditure next year, Chief Executive Shamsul Azhar Abbas told reporters at an earnings briefing. The company typically spends 60 billion ringgit to 80 billion ringgit ($17.9 billion to $23.9 billion) each year in expanding its operations.

…

 


OPEC, non-OPEC oil producers agree ‘price is not good’

February 14, 2015

Duhh.

Dateline 2014-11-26, FMT:

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez said Tuesday that OPEC members and non-member producers agreed that the price of crude oil “is not good”.

“We agreed that the price is not good. Everybody is worried,” he told reporters after OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met with officials from fellow oil producers Russia and Mexico in Vienna against a backdrop of sliding crude prices.

“We discussed the situation on the market, we shared our points of view and we agreed to keep in contact, and we will meet again in three months,” he added.

The meeting came two days before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was to hold its most significant meeting in recent years to decide on whether to cut the cartel’s oil production to help stabilise tumbling prices.

OPEC pumps out about one-third of the world’s oil while Russia is itself a major producer.