Location: Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory, Malaysia
Founded: 1974
Key People:
Wan Zulkiflee bin Wan Ariffin (President & Group CEO)
Ahmad Nizam Salleh (Chairman)
Employees: 47,669
More About The Manufacturer:[]
In 1974, the Petroleum Development Act was tabled in parliament and approved. PETRONAS was incorporated on 17 August 1974 and Tengku Razaleigh became its inaugural chairman. Initially, Exxon and Shell refused to surrender their concessions and refused to negotiate with PETRONAS. PETRONAS then served a notice to all foreign oil companies that after 1 April 1975, all the foreign oil companies would be operating illegally in Malaysian waters if they do not start negotiations with PETRONAS. After a few rounds of negotiations, foreign oil companies finally surrendered their concessions to PETRONAS. While all other oil-producing states in Malaysia signed the petroleum agreement, Tun Mustapha, the chief minister of Sabah, stubbornly refused to sign the oil agreement, complaining of the meagre 5% oil royalty. Mustapha requested 10 to 20% oil royalty, otherwise, he would threaten to pull Sabah out of Malaysia. Tengku Razaleigh refused to bulge in. The Malaysian federal government then make another deal with Datuk Harris Salleh (who was out of favor with Tun Mustapha) to establish the BERJAYA party and oust Tun Mustapha out of power. However, Harris was reluctant to become the chief minister of Sabah and Fuad Stephens was asked to assume to chief minister post if BERJAYA were to come to power. BERJAYA successfully ousted Tun Mustapha in 1976 Sabah state election. One week after the 1976 air crash which killed the chief minister Fuad Stephens and other five state ministers, Harris signed the oil agreement. With Sabah entering the oil agreement, PETRONAS finally has total control of all oil and gas reserves in Malaysia.
The Seliger field, which came onstream at the end of 1988 and was developed by Esso Production Malaysia, was one of the richest oilfields so far found in Malaysia waters, and further concessions to the majors would encourage exploration of the deeper waters around Malaysia, where unknown reserves could be discovered. Meanwhile, computerized seismography made it both feasible and commercially justifiable to re-explore fields that had been abandoned, or was assumed to be unproductive, over the past century. In 1990, PETRONAS invited foreign companies to re-explore parts of the sea off Sabah and Sarawak on the basis of new surveys using up-to-date techniques.
Late in 1989, the governments of Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma) invited PETRONAS Carigali to take part in joint ventures to explore for oil in their coastal waters. In 1990, a new unit, PETRONAS Carigali Overseas Sdn Bhd, was created to take up a 15% interest in a field in Myanmar's waters being explored by Idemitsu Myanmar Oil Exploration Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of the Japanese firm Idemitsu Oil Development Co. Ltd., in a production sharing arrangement with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. Thus began PETRONAS' first oil exploration outside Malaysia. In May 1990, the governments of Malaysia and Thailand settled a long-running dispute over their respective rights to an area of 7,300 square kilometers in the Gulf of Thailand by setting up a joint administrative authority for the area and encouraging a joint oil exploration project by PETRONAS, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand, and the US company Triton Oil. In a separate deal, in October 1990, the Petroleum Authority of Thailand arranged with PETRONAS to study the feasibility of transferring natural gas from this jointly administered area, through Malaysia to Thailand, by way of an extension of the pipelines laid for the third stage of the Peninsular Gas Utilisation Project.
In 1996, PETRONAS entered the aromatics market by way of a joint venture that created Aromatics Malaysia Sdn Bhd. It also formed a contract with China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Chevron Overseas Petroleum Ltd. to begin exploration of block 02/31 of the Liaodong Bay area in China. While the Asian economy as a whole suffered from an economic crisis during 1997 and 1998, Malaysia was quick to bounce back due to successful government reforms. From its new headquarters in the PETRONAS Twin Towers, the state-owned concern continued its development in the oil and gas industry. Soon India's Liberty Group purchased a 1% stake in Petronas
During 1997, PETRONAS heightened its diversification efforts. The firm set plans in motion to build three petrochemical plants in Kuantan as well as an acetic facility in Kerteh. Its first LPG joint venture in China was launched that year and the company acquired a 29.3% interest in Malaysia International Shipping Corporation Berhad (MISC). In 1998, PETRONAS' tanker-related subsidiary merged with MISC, increasing PETRONAS' stake in MISC to 62%. That year, PETRONAS introduced the Petronas E01, the country's first commercial prototype engine. The company also signed a total of five new production sharing contracts (PSCs) in 1998 and 1999 and began oil production in the Sirri field in Iran
.By 2003, Malaysia was set to usurp Algeria as the world's second-largest producer of LNG with the completion of the Malaysia LNG Tiga Plant. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad commented on the achievement in a May 2003 Bernama News Agency article, claiming that "the PETRONAS LNG complex now serves as another shining example of a vision realized of national aspiration, transformed into reality by the same belief among Malaysians that 'we can do it.'" Indeed, PETRONAS had transformed itself into a global oil company over the previous decade, becoming a national symbol for success. The company realized, however, that it would have to continue its aggressive growth strategy to ensure its survival in the years to come.
In 2004, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, stated that PETRONAS contributed RM 25 Billion to the country's treasury accounting for 25% of revenue collected via dividends and other revenues. PETRONAS continuously provides the Malaysian government dividends from its profits. Since inception in 1974, PETRONAS have paid the government RM 403.3 billion, with RM 67.6 billion in 2008. The payment represents 44% of the 2008 federal government revenue. PETRONAS continues to focus on international exploration projects as 40% of revenue in 2008 was derived from international projects such as Iran, Sudan, Chad, and Mauritania. The company's international reserves stood at 6.24 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2008. On 9 April 2019, PETRONAS was praised for its role in the Sudanese oil and gas industry by Minister of Oil and Gas engineer Yagoub Adam Bashir Gamaa.
On 29 October 2012, PETRONAS sources said it will renew a bid for gas producer Progress Energy Resources after Canada blocked its bid earlier that month. The $6-billion bid was approved by Ottawa on 7 December 2012.
On 17 January 2013, PETRONAS issued a statement that an onshore oil and gas discovery has been made in the state after drilling a test well about 20 kilometres away from the city of Miri in northern Sarawak. The well was found to have a net hydrocarbon thickness of 349 meters. It had flow rates of 440 barrels of crude oil per day and 11.5 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. The find is the first onshore oil discovery in Malaysia in 24 years.
On 2 May 2015, PETRONAS completed its acquisition of oil and gas assets in Azerbaijan from Norway’s Statoil (now Equinor) for US$2.25 billion.
On 1 April 2017, PETRONAS' PFLNG SATU, is the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, has achieved a new milestone with the successful loading of its first cargo at the Kanowit gas field, offshore Bintulu, Sarawak. On 25 July 2017, PETRONAS canceled a $36-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, the Pacific Northwest LNG, which was considered ambitious and a priority in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Both the company and the province blamed poor global LNG market conditions. Today PETRONAS is definitely a part of iRacing's fuel supply of the F1 and GT3 cars, most notably, those cars in the field that sport the PETRONAS paint scheme.