Wah Seong earnings for first quarter shrink 59%
KUALA LUMPUR: Wah Seong Corp Bhd’s net profit for its first quarter ended March 31 shrunk 59% to RM17.78mil, from RM43.37mil a year earlier, on a revenue that declined to RM481.56mil from RM490.9mil.
The company said in an announcement to Bursa Malaysia that profit at its oil and gas segment fell due to lower margin projects executed.
Wah Seong said its renewable energy segment was seeing improving margins on new projects secured/ executed during the quarter and this had had a positive impact on the first-quarter profit versus the yearearlier period.
Its industrial trading and services segment saw continued demand from the construction and infrastructure sectors contributing to revenue and profit growth.
Wah Seong’s pre-tax profit fell to RM23.7mil from RM33.5mil a year earlier. The decrease in revenue together with the lower margin projects in the oil and gas segment contributed to the drop in profit, it said.
The company said its current order-book stood at RM1.2bil, comprising RM727mil in the oil and gas segment, RM243mil in renewable energy and RM182mil in industrial trading and services.
“This order-book, together with a healthy tender-book, is expected to allow the group to maintain satisfactory performance in the current financial year, in the face of continuing uncertainty generated by the eurozone crisis and the slowdown in global growth,” it said.
The company is in talks with several parties, says CEO
BY LEONG HUNG YEE MALACCA: A number of companies have expressed interest in using the Petronas Gas Bhd liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal in Sungai Udang.
Petronas Gas managing director and chief executive officer Samsudin Miskon said at a media briefing that the company was in talks with several parties that were interested in using facility.
“We have been approached by a few of them verbally and some have written to us to express interest to use the LNG regasification terminal,” he said.
He revealed that the interested parties were both local and foreign but Petronas Gas had signed non-disclosure agreements with them.
Samsudin said the liberalisation of the gas sector allowed any third party to bring in gas supply for themselves or for clients.
Currently, 100% of the capacity at the LNG regasification would be taken up by Petronas Gas. However, he said the company was willing to scale down the capacity for any third party interested in using its facility.
In anticipation of third-party access, Petronas Gas had published the Petronas Gas Network Code in December 2011. The code will govern the use of the terminal and the pipeline network to ensure discipline and fairness among users so that customers are well-served.
The LNG regasification terminal is the country’s first such plant and was built below the original budget of RM3bil. The facility will allow various players to import LNG and serve the domestic market, thus alleviating the country’s energy supply challenges.
Two other LNG regasification ter- minals are being built in Pengerang, Johor and Lahad Datu, Sabah.
Separately, Samsudin said the final costing was kept low because the plant was built on a “super fast-track” basis.
“Itismuchlowerthanthat(RM3bil). It is below the cost that was envisaged earlier,” he said, without revealing the exact cost.
The project was officially announced by the Prime Minister on June 10, 2010 under the 10th Malaysia Plan.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Ali Rustam will launch the plant on Monday, in conjunction with the World Gas Conference 2012.
Samsudin said the plant had a capacity to receive, store and vaporise up 3.8 million tonnes a year or 530 million standard cu ft of gas per day (mmscfd) of LNG, which will be imported from various supply sources globally. The capacity would be increased eventually to 2.5 billion mmscfd.
He said the additional capacity would be sufficient should there be no interruption to its supply. “If there’s any interruption, the additional capacity will help to minimise the disruption.”
The plant, which has reached its mechanical completion, will be undergoing various testing before receiving its first LNG shipment at the end of August.
The terminal is sited 3km offshore from Sungai Udang and is considered an engineering feat in the industry. It has a revolutionary design, with the first-of-its-kind regasification unit on an island jetty (JRU), two floating storage units (FSU) and a 3km subsea pipeline connected to a new 30km onshore pipeline, which links it to Petronas Gas’s existing Peninsular Gas Utilisation (PGU) pipeline network.
The FSU concept has allowed the team to dispense with building landbased regasification and storage facilities. The two FSUs, formerly Tenagaclass LNG tankers owned by Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s shipping arm MISC Bhd, will be permanently berthed at the JRU.
Petronas Gas regasification terminal division general manager Hudal Firdaus Dimyati said the FSUs had been designed to be berthed for at least 20 years without the need for dry docking.
“The first FSU, Tenaga Empat, has been berthed at the terminal. The second FSU will arrive on Saturday,” he said.
The conversion of the tankers into FSUs was carried out at the Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Holdings Bhd’s shipyard in Pasir Gudang, Johor and the Keppel shipyard in Singapore.
The JRU, which is the core of the regasification terminal, is designed to receive LNG, re-gasify it and deliver natural gas via the subsea pipeline to the PGU pipeline.