Introduction to Malaysia Oil and Gas

Who spark Oil and Gas industry in Malaysia?

PETRONAS was not the first company to extract oil or gas in Malaysia. It was Royal Dutch Shell that began the oil exploration in Sarawak, then under the White Rajahs, at the end of the 19th century. In 1910, the first oil well was drilled in Miri, Sarawak. This became the first oil producing well known as the Grand Old Lady. Shell was still the only oil company in the area in 1963, when the Federation of Malaya, having achieved independence from Britain six years before, united with Sarawak and Sabah, both on the island of Borneo, and became Malaysia. The authorities in the two new states retained their links with Royal Dutch Shell, which brought Malaysia's first offshore oil field onstream in 1968.

Meanwhile, the federal government turned to Esso, Continental Oil, and Mobil, licensing exploration off the state of Terengganu, in the Malay Peninsula, the most populous region and the focus of federal power. By 1974, however, only Esso was still in the area. It made its first discoveries of natural gas in that year and then rapidly made Terengganu a bigger producer of oil than either Sarawak or Sabah. By 1974, Malaysia's output of crude oil stood at about 81,000 barrels per day (12,900 m³/d).

The Government of Malaysia contributes significantly towards policy and macro-economic planning to secure a sustainable and long-term success of the oil and gas industry. The Government’s main objective is to increase aggregate production capacity by five per cent every year up to 2020 to meet domestic demand growth while sustaining crude oil and LNG exports to overseas markets. In the Asia Pacific region, Malaysia aims to be the number one oil and gas hub by 2017, taking advantage of its strategic location at key shipping lanes as well as strong economic fundamentals in China, India and within Southeast Asia.

In Malaysia, energy policy for the upstream sector is determined by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and the Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU), both of which reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Government focuses on efforts to enhance output from existing oil and gas fields, new marginal fields as well as exploration and development opportunities in deep-water areas. To this end, new tax and investment incentives under Petroleum Income Tax Act (PITA) were introduced in 2010 to promote oil and gas exploration activities.