Petronas plans production of 750mil–1bil barrels from 14 oil fields

Azman wins award Bina Puri gets RM441mil job Perak contract for Pasukhas PBB issues RM1bil notes

Fourteen oil fields in Malaysia, identified under the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) initiative, are targeted to produce between 750 million and one billion barrels of oil for the duration of fields’ economic life, depending on the condition of the fields and when these projects start up.

In efforts to tackle dwindling oil reserves in the country, the national oil company identified these oil fields to implement EOR progressively in the future – the first being the Tapis field.

Five of the fields are located offshore Sabah and Sarawak while the others are offshore the peninsula. The oilfields include Baram in Sarawak, St Joseph in Sabah, Tapis, as well as the Dulang oilfields offshore the peninsula.

Petronas’ aggressive initiatives has enabled it to keep the decline factor to a minimum.

At a recent industry briefing, group chief executive officer Tan Sri Shamsul Azhar Abbas said that Petronas had kept the declination rate between 2% and 3%, whereas international standards of decline in existing fields were currently between 8% and 9%.

“As a result, weare able to maintain our current crude production level at around 480,000 barrels per day. A lot of effort have been put in to retain this average; otherwise the decline would be much worse,” he said.

Petronas is working with ExxonMobil and Shell, among others, for its EOR initiatives.

Petronas and ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia is working on the RM10bil Tapis EOR

AmBank Group chairman Tan Sri Azman Hashim has been awarded “The Jewels of the Muslim World Award” in recognition of his contribution to the Islamic world at the Fourth Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) World BIZ 2013.

“I am truly honoured to receive this award, which is a testament to the products and services offered by AmIslamic,” he said in a statement.

The award is organised by OIC Today Magazine. project, one of the largest offshore projects of its kind in South-East Asia. The project is the country’s first largescale full-field offshore implementation of water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection.

Petronas is targeting to recover an additional 10% to 15% of oil – from 40% now – using the WAG technology. The field is currently producing between 4,000 to 5,000 barrels of oil per day.

The Tapis EOR project, located about 200km offshore Terengganu, comprises several major components

Bina Puri Holdings Bhd has been awarded a two-year contract worth RM441mil from Sime Darby CapitaMalls Asia (Melawati Mall) Sdn Bhd.

The company told the stock exchange that it would undertake the construction of super-structure works for a 13-storey commercial complex in Setapak, Selangor.

Bina Puri said it expected the contract to contribute positively to its earnings for the current year to Dec 31. including Tapis Q, a new riser platform that was installed in September last year, and Tapis R, a new central processing platform.

Since the Tapis field began production in 1978, about 400 million barrels of oil have been produced. Petronas expects to extend the life of the field by 30 years through EOR techniques using WAG injection.

Petronas expects EOR production at Tapis to start in the first half of 2014.

The project is expected to reach production peak of between 25,000

Pasukhas Group Bhd subsidiary Pasukhas Sdn Bhd has been awarded a contract to construct an 18-storey apartment and nine commercial units in Perak worth RM64.5mil.

It said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia the project would to start in the fourth quarter of 2013 and be completed within 24 months.

The group said the project was expected to contribute positively to its future earnings and net assets. — Bernama and 35,000 barrels of oil per day in 2016 and 2017.

Among the companies involved in EOR projects are Bumi Armada Bhd and MMHE Holdings Bhd.

In June 2008, ExxonMobil and Petronas signed a production sharing contract to further develop seven mature fields: Tapis, Seligi, Guntong, Semangkok, Irong Barat, Tabu and Palas.

Last year, Petronas and Shell agreed to invest RM36bil over 30 years in an EOR collaboration to recover oil off Sarawak and Sabah.

Public Bank Bhd (PBB), Malaysia third largest lender, has issued RM1bil medium-term notes under a Basel III-compliant Tier 2 subordinated medium-term notes programme of up to RM10bil.

The notes would have a tenure of 10 years and a coupon rate of 4.8%, the bank said in a filing with the stock exchange.

The sudden resignations at Maybank Investment Bank Bhd (Maybank IB) would not be disruptive to its business for now, analysts said, although they noted that new hires to replace the departing executives would have “big shoes to fill”.

“It would be business as usual in the near term, as the bank’s internal control operating systems are in place and would not be disrupted by personnel changes,” said a banking analyst who declined to be named.

The analyst, however, said he would be more concerned if there were more departures at Maybank IB.

Maybank had announced on Tuesday that Tengku Datuk Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz had quit as chief executive officer of Maybank IB, his departure coming just weeks after Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli resigned as president director of PT Bank Internasional Indonesia on Sept 4.

Tengku Zafrul’s departure was followed by that of the investment bank’s chief strategy officer Nazri Rahim and director of special projects Luanne Sieh.

“More departures could create more uncertainty, especially if these personnel were leaving to join a rival bank,” the analyst said.

Another analyst said the fundamentals of Maybank IB were still intact for now, as its pipeline for nearterm projects of six to nine months were secure. However, he said it was not clear if the bank could secure sufficient deals beyond that timeframe.

“The person to come on board in the future would have to be aggressive, as the bank had been very aggressive under both Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar (Maybank’s former president and CEO) and Tengku Zafrul’s leadership. Under that team, Maybank had always outperformed the earnings forecasts of research houses,” he said.

Wahid left Maybank in June following his appointment as Minister in the Prime Minister’s department.

For the six months ended June 30, the Maybank group’s non-interest income (which is largely the earnings of its investment banking arm) amounted to some RM3.16bil, or 34% of the group’s RM9.28bil net income.

The bank shed 12 sen to RM9.85 yesterday, with 16.32 million shares changing hands.