Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) plans to build another regasification plant in Lumut, Perak in view of the serious shortage of gas faced by the country.
President/chief executive officer, Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas, said the Lumut plant would be the fourth Petronas would build to resolve the gas shortage woes.
The first plant in Melaka, which will have a capacity of 3.6 million tonnes a year, is expected to come on stream in July or August next year.
He said the gas supply disruption in Malaysia was expected to continue until the Melaka plant was in operation.
"The shortage is going to last until the gas terminal in Melaka is commissioned in July or August next year.
"Then, no one will complain about the shortage of gas anymore," he said at the announcement of the group's financial performance for its second quarter today.
Shamsul said Petronas and Tenaga Nasional (TNB) had agreed that the gas supplied from the gas terminal in Melaka would be at full market price as the company would be importing the gas.
"The understanding with TNB and the industry is that any molecule that supplied from that gas terminal will be at full market price because we are basically importing the LNG.
"With the completion of the terminal, we’ll introduce full open access, meaning they can choose to bring their own gas or buy from any company willing to supply them the gas, so Petronas will no longer have that monopoly of gas supply to domestic end-users," he said.
Petronas planned to have a second gas terminal in Pengerang, Johor in 2015 and the third plant in Lahad Datu in Sabah where it would be connected to the power plant that Petronas would build with TNB in Lahad Datu, he said.
He said the Melaka and Pengerang plants would have annual capacity of between 3.6 million tonnes and 3.8 million tonnes.
"Looking at the gas demand profile for the country, we reckon that we may need the third and the fourth gas terminal plants," he said.
Shamsul said Petronas was currently in discussion with TNB to ascertain the amount of additional expenditure that had been incurred because of the shortage of gas.
"We will come to an agreement as soon as we know what is the right level TNB had spent. We will play our part and the government will play its part too," he said.
According to Shamsul, Petronas was willing to pay one third of the amount.
He said Petronas has also put a bid for exploratory rights in Myanmar’s onshore blocks.
He said at the moment, Petronas has only offshore operations and the business has been performing well.
"The bidding process will end next year," he said.
Shamsul said Petronas was also looking at entering Japan’s power industry.
"We have plans to further expand our generation capacity. We started in Singapore and are looking at Japan because of the nuclear problem that they had this year.
"They may be looking at reducing dependency on nuclear. They will come out with a new energy policy, probably in the middle of next year, and it will demand more of thermal generation and gas will be one of them.
"We are interested to participate," he said.
Petronas has bought a 30 per cent stake in GMR Energy (Singapore) Pte Ltd, marking its first foray into the international power business, he said. -- Bernama
President/chief executive officer, Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas, said the Lumut plant would be the fourth Petronas would build to resolve the gas shortage woes.
The first plant in Melaka, which will have a capacity of 3.6 million tonnes a year, is expected to come on stream in July or August next year.
He said the gas supply disruption in Malaysia was expected to continue until the Melaka plant was in operation.
"The shortage is going to last until the gas terminal in Melaka is commissioned in July or August next year.
"Then, no one will complain about the shortage of gas anymore," he said at the announcement of the group's financial performance for its second quarter today.
Shamsul said Petronas and Tenaga Nasional (TNB) had agreed that the gas supplied from the gas terminal in Melaka would be at full market price as the company would be importing the gas.
"The understanding with TNB and the industry is that any molecule that supplied from that gas terminal will be at full market price because we are basically importing the LNG.
"With the completion of the terminal, we’ll introduce full open access, meaning they can choose to bring their own gas or buy from any company willing to supply them the gas, so Petronas will no longer have that monopoly of gas supply to domestic end-users," he said.
Petronas planned to have a second gas terminal in Pengerang, Johor in 2015 and the third plant in Lahad Datu in Sabah where it would be connected to the power plant that Petronas would build with TNB in Lahad Datu, he said.
He said the Melaka and Pengerang plants would have annual capacity of between 3.6 million tonnes and 3.8 million tonnes.
"Looking at the gas demand profile for the country, we reckon that we may need the third and the fourth gas terminal plants," he said.
Shamsul said Petronas was currently in discussion with TNB to ascertain the amount of additional expenditure that had been incurred because of the shortage of gas.
"We will come to an agreement as soon as we know what is the right level TNB had spent. We will play our part and the government will play its part too," he said.
According to Shamsul, Petronas was willing to pay one third of the amount.
He said Petronas has also put a bid for exploratory rights in Myanmar’s onshore blocks.
He said at the moment, Petronas has only offshore operations and the business has been performing well.
"The bidding process will end next year," he said.
Shamsul said Petronas was also looking at entering Japan’s power industry.
"We have plans to further expand our generation capacity. We started in Singapore and are looking at Japan because of the nuclear problem that they had this year.
"They may be looking at reducing dependency on nuclear. They will come out with a new energy policy, probably in the middle of next year, and it will demand more of thermal generation and gas will be one of them.
"We are interested to participate," he said.
Petronas has bought a 30 per cent stake in GMR Energy (Singapore) Pte Ltd, marking its first foray into the international power business, he said. -- Bernama
