Brief History

The first oil well discovered in Malaysia was by Shell company, in 1910 in Miri, Sarawak. Thereafter, the same company constructed Malaysia's first refinery in 1914, which undertakes the whole manufacturing of petroleum products. At present, Malaysia's oil company, PETRONAS undertakes the exploration and production of the oil and gas in Malaysia whilst Shell and other oil companies operates as a contractor to PETRONAS under Production Sharing Contracts.¹

Malaysia's oil and gas fields can be found mainly offshore of Peninsula Malaysia as well as the east coast. At present, Malaysia has 37 producing oil fields and 11 producing gas fields whilst several others are under development. The main five oil fields that produces high quality blends of crude can be found in the east of Peninsula Malaysia mainly, Tapis,Labuan, Miri, Bintulu and Dulang. It has been estimated that Malaysia has been producing 630,000 barrels of oils and five billion cubic feet of gas per day.² Such an amount produced has made Malaysia one of the niche players in the oil and gas industry.

Future

Malaysia has uncovered an estimated 214 gas field and most of these fields are under some development. As at 1 January, 2000, Malaysia has about 3.4 billion barrels of crude oil reserves and about 84.2 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves. This reserve has successfully placed the country at 27th and 12th places respectively in terms of world ranking.³

Such untapped vast resources with many oil and gas fields under development and to be developed, provide golden opportunities to many companies. Worldvest Asia Pacific is committed to share its expertise to help interested companies in gaining an interest in the market share of the oil and gas industry in Malaysia.

¹Sources taken from Shell and Petronas Websites.Copyright © 1999-2000 PETRONAS
²Sources taken from Petronas website.
³Sources taken from Petronas website.Copyright © 1999-2000 PETRONAS