Lured by cheap coal, Southeast Asia turns away from gas

January 23, 2014

Now, where is the phone number of my coal mine owner friend? Dateline 2013-12-09, Malaysian Insider:

Southeast Asia’s power sector will tilt away from gas to use more coal by the end of this decade, chipping away at demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the region of more than 600 million people tries to cut costs to meet soaring electricity needs.

With a wave of LNG projects due to come online this decade, this shift in consumption from a region long-expected to be a key growth market could help take some of the heat out of rising Asian prices of the cleaner fuel.

Gas prices in Asia are about five times more expensive than in the United States, driven by demand for LNG from countries such as Japan and South Korea — whose nuclear power sectors are in crisis — and China, where stringent pollution control measures are driving a switch from dirtier coal.

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Malaysia’s first oil and gas terminal to open soon

January 22, 2014

Methinks the reporter messed up the title. Also, is it implicit the SOGT never told local residents what to expect during an emergency flaring? Dateline 2013-12-09, The Star:

The country’s first integrated oil and gas terminal is set to be operational by early next year after undergoing several months of a commissioning process.

Project director Noor Illias Mohd Idris said the commissioning process of the RM3.8bil Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal (SOGT) in Kimanis was due to begin soon.

“This is one of our biggest projects and is capable of processing 1.25 million standard cubic feet of gas and 260,000 barrels of oil daily,” he said at a media briefing yesterday.

During the commissioning process, he said, loud noises due to the emission of gas flares as high as 100m would be heard by villagers within Kimanis and nearby areas.

“The flare is normal during commissioning due to the release of gas during equipment testing.

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Eurocopter’s EC175 made first stopover in Malaysia

January 21, 2014

For those of you looking for a new set of wheels to go to work.

Dateline 2013-12-07, fz.com (who?):

The Asian tour for Eurocopter’s EC175 began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia early this week, where the new-generation helicopter was demonstrated for operators in the civil, military, law enforcement and para public sectors.
 
“A particular focus was on oil and gas industry services – for which the EC175 offers excellent performance, speed and handling qualities in challenging operations, particularly to offshore platforms,” said Francois de Bray, the marketing programme manager for EC175, during a demonstration flight of the helicopter for media here today.
 
The company sees Malaysia as an important market with a great potential growth. For that reason, Eurocopter brought the EC175 to Malaysia as the first stop of its Asia Demo Tour, which will also include Vietnam and Thailand.
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Saturday Star 2014-01-18 – Job Opportunities

January 20, 2014

Happy HAZID and HAZOP week

Buy my recommendations, or through my Amazon store. Where are those corporate sponsors? Or throw donations at me. I need RM360 to get The Star ePaper

  • I’m looking for a senior process engineer, 7+ years experience. Send your cv here. Also looking for technical safety persons, metering / measurement engineers and other seniors you think will catch my eye.
  • Nothing else catches my eye.

Here’s a quick list of tech podcasts I follow:

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!

This week, my theme is, you need to be a better all round engineer. Hence, some selections for the process engineer:

A Simple Guide To Understanding Jet Engines, Process Plant Instrumentation: Design and Upgrade, Mechanical Design of Process Systems: Piping and Pressure Vessels

The IEM has a coffee table book out, Engineering Heritage of Malaysia (no, it is not Datuk Seri Samy Vellu’s bio). Visit here for details.

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REALLY? ‘Tariff hike VITAL to cover TNB’s escalating costs’

January 19, 2014

History, but what the hey…

Don’t just be energy efficient, embrace an energy efficiency culture.

Dateline 2013-12-06, Malaysia Chronicle:

AN imminent power tariff hike may give Tenaga Nasional Bhd a profit boost but it is still spending more than what it earns, industry sources say.

TNB is spending at least RM6 billion on new infrastructure, maintenance and capital expenditure (capex) annually to ensure power supply sustainability.

The investment is higher than the RM4.6 billion profit the national utility posted for the year ended August 31 2013, they noted.

The tariff revision, which is effective from January 1, is crucial to help TNB meet rising costs of supply, reinvest in ageing equipment and make improvements in providing reliable and quality electricity supply.

Of the RM6 billion, TNB invests between RM3.5 billion and RM4 billion annually for new supply and system improvements to its distribution networks and multi-connection channels, sources said.

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Shell Malaysia makes effort to cultivate awareness on O&G

January 18, 2014

I like where the article states ‘Mat said’, and I can’t find any reference to this mysterious ‘Mat’ in the preceding text.

Dateline 2013-12-05, Borneo Post:

Shell Malaysia has come of age with cutting edge technologies in the oil and gas industry whilst cultivating Malaysians to take the company to the next stage.

This was presented to the media at a Wells to Wheels briefing in Miri organised by Shell’s Corporate Affairs Department.

“Over 90 per cent of the 6,500 staff employed by Shell Malaysia are Malaysians, and the 450 expatriates are carefully picked while another 398 Malaysians are working for Shell companies abroad,” he said.

About 40 per cent of the staff are working in upstream industries, he added, whereby some of the staff are fourth-generation employees of this Malaysian pioneering oil and gas company under Royal Dutch Shell umbrella.

Mat said Shell Malaysia has came a long way and pioneering technology such as Gas-To-Liquid ( GTL) technology in Shell Middle Distillate Synthesis (SMDS) project in Bintulu is now used in Qatar plant with ten-folds capacity.

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The bigger picture on electricity tariff hikes

January 17, 2014

From the Malaysian Insider, 2013-12-01:

The issue of an increase in electricity tariffs has been spun out of proportion. In Malaysia, there is a growing need to review and increase our electricity tariffs, given that they are still one of the lowest rates in the world.

Malaysia’s power industry needs reform. The entire structural mechanism as outlined by the Malaysian Electricity Supply Industry (MESI) transformation programme and Incentive-Based Regulations (IBR) is intended to benefit the consumers by delivering value and quality in power distribution, using global key performance benchmarks.

For the industry, MESI and IBR reward the utility company based on performance measured by:

  • System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) – the global benchmark of the number of times the system experiences outages in a year;

  • System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) – the global benchmark of the number of minutes the system experiences outages in a year; and,

  • Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI) – the global benchmark of the number of minutes a customer experiences outages in a year.

 

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An expensive Malaysian habit

January 16, 2014

Dateline 2013-11-24, The Star (someone send me money to pay for my subscription, or lack of):

We do not practise simple cost-saving measures to cut down on electricity consumption.

But with a tariff hike expected, it looks like we will all have to learn to be more prudent.

BITS and pieces of news of an impending hike in electricity tariffs have been appearing in the newspapers, but mostly in the business section which ordinary consumers are likely to miss.

In terms of usage, manufacturers and industry players are the ones who will be hit the hardest. But the reality is that ordinary Malaysians can expect their electricity bill to be higher next year. And that does not even take into account the higher costs for just about everything else due to the pass-down effect.

No one is sure of the quantum. It is still at the stage where officials and civil servants are putting up their recommendations for the Cabinet to make its decision.

When the quantum of the hike becomes more definite, we can be sure there will be many reactions to the decision.

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Malaysian players win big from latest Petronas contracts

January 15, 2014

Dateline 2013-11-19, Seatrade Global

The recent award of contracts for a massive block of 13 work package from Petronas to six local companies to some extent signals the coming of age of the Malaysian offshore services industry.

The hook-up and offshore platform maintenance contracts worth a combined MYR10bn ($3.1bn) over five years, is one of Petronas’ largest service contracts currently in place, CIMB Research oil and gas (O&G) analyst Norziana Mohd Inon was quoted as saying.

Petronas said earlier this week that the contract involved the hook-up and commissioning and maintenance services for offshore facilities and included all the necessary services, such as manpower services, marine spread services, and tools and equipment required for the execution of the respective work scopes.

…

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IEM Shout Out – Talk on Flyrock Issues at Quarries and Construction Sites

January 15, 2014

This is a shout out for the IEM. My technical division will be having a talk on Saturday, 8th February, 2014 at 9am. Makan-makan at 8:30am.

Flyrock issues had been in the newspapers and other media regularly every year sometimes with fatalities and other times caused serious damages to properties and also serious injuries to people. Rock blasting at quarries and construction sites is actually an essential part of development work and can be done safely even at location very close to properties. However, highly qualified blasting engineers and experience shotfirers are needed to ensure compliance with safety requirements imposed by the authorities. Low vibration limit and almost no airblast are required to ensure minimum disturbance to the public. Only when blasting is not permitted alternative means such as expansive cement and pyrotechnics materials are considered. The talk will discuss the flyrock issues and mean to tackle it and the alternative means to blasting when and where it is possible. The talk can be useful to project managers or engineers who are likely to be responsible for blasting at their sites.

As for the speaker:

Ir. Hj Look Keman graduated with a degree in Mining Engineering from Stratchlyde University in 1979 and M.Sc in Explosives Engineering from Cranfield University in 1991. He initially worked as Research Engineer with Mines Research Institute in Mining Geotechnical Engineering specialising in Slope Engineering for mines, tailing dams etc. Later he worked as Inspector of Mines in Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Malacca and after his postgraduate studies. He specialised in Rock blasting in mines quarries and Construction sites. He had been involved in many investigations on flyrock issues from quarries and construction sites since 1991 till now and will discuss on his experience and mitigation techniques to minimise or eliminate the problem. He retired from the Mines Department in 1996 and work as Consultant Engineer.

You can register here, and download the form here. A map to the Wisma IEM is provided here. Note Wisma IEM is where the nursing college is (don’t ask).

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