Sunday 25 March 2012

Malaysia henti import minyak Iran

Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak berkata Malaysia akan menghentikan pengimportan minyak mentah Iran.

Beliau mengesahkan satu laporan berita asing bahawa syarikat minyak negara, Petronas, akan menghentikan pengimportan minyak mentah Iran mulai April, iaitu
dua bulan sebelum sekatan Amerika Syarikat berkuat kuasa.

"Ia hanya jumlah yang kecil," katanya dalam jawapan singkat kepada para pemberita pada sidang media selepas mesyuarat Majlis Tertinggi Umno di sini hari
ini.

Menurut laporan itu hari ini, Petronas kini mengimport kira-kira 50,000-60,000 tong minyak minyak mentah Iran sehari.

Kini, China, India, Jepun dan Korea Selatan adalah empat pembeli terbesar minyak mentah Iran di Asia.

Sehingga ini, Iran menjual kebanyakan daripada 2.6 juta tong sehari (bpd) yang dieksport di rantau ini.

Monday 19 March 2012

Petronas Agrees To Pay More For Natural Gas From Natuna

Petronas, has agreed to pay $6 per million British thermal units of natural gas from the Natuna B Block during the 2012-2022 period, Gde Pradnyana, spokesman of oil and gas regulator BPMigas, said Thursday.

The price of the gas was previously $3.1/mmBtu.

Indonesia stands to gain $1 billion more from the price hike. The operator of the block, ConocoPhilips (COP), has been supplying gas to Petronas since 2002, Pradnyana said.

BPMigas is actively renegotiating gas prices with local and foreign buyers following a surge in oil prices worldwide in recent years.

Source : Wall Street Journal

Tuesday 6 March 2012

Petronas posts 34 pct profit decline, warns on outlook

Petronas posted a 34 percent decline in third-quarter profit on Monday, saying the fall was mainly due to a one-off gain in 2010 from the listing of subsidiaries.

Without that gain, Petronas' Q3 profit was higher than a year ago on the back of higher crude oil prices and improved margins, it said.

The unlisted firm said its net profit for the nine-month period ended Dec 31, 2011 was 10.6 percent higher than a year ago at 55.57 billion ringgit ($18.5 billion) due to higher crude oil prices, sales and gas production volume.

Revenue in the nine months rose 26.9 percent to 222.79 billion ringgit year on year.

The company warned of a challenging outlook ahead on lower expected crude production and weaker prices on the back of the protracted European sovereign debt crisis.

"Growth in 2012 and 2013 will be not be as strong as we have seen last year as the current crude oil prices won't last long. It is hurting the economy," Petronas' president and CEO Shamsul Azhar Abbas told reporters.

He said crude oil prices are expected to hover between $85 to $90 per barrel this year, compare to around $110 now.

Shamsul said the company's crude production was expected to be lower this year due to natural depletion.

"Challenge remains in production," he told reporters, adding that the political uncertainties in Middle Eastern were adding to the challenging outlook. Petronas' oil production declined four percent last year.

Petronas is facing depleting oil and gas reserves in Malaysia and has stepped up its deep-water exploratory activities as well as re-exploring marginal fields.

Petronas' oil production in South Sudan, which amounted to some 135,000 barrels a day or 18 percent of its total production, has ceased due to a row between Sudan and South Sudan over oil transit fees, said Shamsul.

"It's a severe reduction and we have no idea of when we will be able to get back the 135,000 barrels a day," he told reporters. "But it will be partially offset by our other production in other countries."

Petronas is part of Chinese-Malaysian oil firm Petrodar. South Sudan said in February it had expelled the head of Petrodar, which is the main oil firm in the country, after accusing Chinese firms of helping Sudan to seize the southern oil.

Oil from Sudan accounts for about 20 to 30 percent of Petronas' international oil production, making it the single largest contributor.

According to Petronas' official website, its presence in the Republic of South Sudan is via its 20 percent interest in Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company Ltd, 40 percent in Petrodar Operating Company and 67.87 percent White Nile Petroleum Operating Company Ltd

Petronas' partners are China National Petroleum Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation and Tri-Ocean Energy.

Friday 2 March 2012

Scomi plans merger with unit

Scomi Group Bhd (SGB) and its associate company, Scomi Marine Bhd (SMB), have proposed to merge their businesses under a new company (newco) in a bid to create a larger upstream drilling services provider.

SGB said in a statement the newco would have a more diversified income stream as well as combined expertise, which include the provision of high-performance drilling fluids solutions; modern drilling waste management services; completion, well-bore, clean up and cementing services as well as offshore supply vessels to support the oil and gas industry.

The corporate exercise to be carried out over the next few months would involve an internal restructuring and capital repayment within SMB, the restructuring of legal entities within oilfield services group and the creation of the newco to take over SMB and oilfield services Eastern Hemisphere businesses.

It said the newco would assume the listing status of SMB and the enlarged entity would create a simplified and more competitive upstream drilling services company.
Post-merger, SGB said the newco would be in a stronger financial position and was expected to have greater flexibility in its future fund-raising exercises, thus allowing it to capitalise on business expansion opportunities locally and abroad.

The newco would enable shareholders of both SGB and SMB to have direct participation and also aimed to financially restructure SGB and pare down its debts and strengthen its balance sheet. SGB would have at least a 32.9% stake in the newco post-merger.

The board of SMB also intends to propose a cash distribution of up to US$45mil (RM134.7mil) to SMB shareholders via a capital repayment exercise.

Shareholders of SMB stand to gain 18.3 sen per share, assuming if SMB distributes the proceeds in full.

The proceeds of the capital repayment are from the disposal of SMB's marine logistics subsidiaries to PT Rig Tenders Indonesia TBK, a 80.54%-owned unit of Scomi Marine Services Pte Ltd, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMB.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Malaysian Tanjung Bin oil terminal plans to start operations in March

The ATT Tanjung Bin oil terminal, located in southern Malaysia, is planning a dry run of operations in the first week of March and start-up of fuel oil operations in the third week of the month, a spokesman for terminal owner VTTI said Monday.

Middle distillates and light-end operations would then follow in the first week of April, he added.

The new terminal will have an initial storage capacity of 841,000 cubic meters over 41 tanks, though a second stage could add an additional 820,000 cu m. Work on the second phase has not yet started, though 20 hectares of land at the site has been cleared for the expansion.

The terminal has five berths, with the largest able to accommodate a VLCC, with maximum draft of 17 meters. Further berths could be added as part of the second phase of the project, the VTTI spokesman said.

The jetty carries four, 30-inch fuel oil pipelines and an additional six, smaller pipelines for clean products. Fuel oil can be loaded at a rate of 7,500 cu m/hour, the spokesman said, middle distillates at 7,000 cu m/hour and light ends at 5,500 cu m/hour.

Work on the terminal's fuel oil tanks is complete, the VTTI spokesman said, while work on the middle distillates and gasoline tanks, jetty and berths are also mostly finished. The bulk of work remaining is focused on connecting the network of pipelines, he said.

The terminal is located to the west of the key Asian oil hub of Singapore, where land available for new terminal projects is scarce.

VTTI is a 50/50 joint venture between Swiss trader Vitol and Malaysian shipping company MISC. The company operates a number of terminals and tank operations around the world, but the Tanjung Bin terminal is its "largest-ever construction project," the company has said previously.

Vitol announced plans for the new terminal in September 2008, after it signed a long-term lease for the project land. A year later, in August 2009, it announced a joint venture agreement with MISC covering the Tanjung Bin terminal, and a year after that the sale of a 50% stake in VTTI to the Malaysian company.

Petco, the trading arm of Malaysian oil company Petronas, holds a lease to 100,000 cubic meters of storage at Tanjung Bin, while Vitol holds the lease for the remainder. However, the company is able to sublease some of that capacity out to other companies, a source close to the matter said.

Kenchana gets RM74m ExxonMobil job

Kencana HL Sdn Bhd has secured a RM74 million contract for the fabrication of Tapis R sub-structure for the Tapis Re-Development Project from ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc.

Under the contract, Kencana HL would undertake the procurement, fabrication, testing, load-out and tie-down of sub-structures which include jacket, piles and related component which form part of Tapis R central processing platform for the project located off the coast of Terengganu, said Kencana Petroleum in a statement.

It is a one-off engineering, procurement and construction contract expected to be delivered to ExxonMobil within the second quarter of calendar year 2013, it said. - Bernama