Malaysia's Options for Power (Part 1)

Natural Gas

Issues

• Demand exceeds supply
• Depleting local gas supply
• Power sector gas supply uncertain beyond 2019
• Gas price not reflecting cost of supply - lack of incentive for new supply investment

Possible Solutions

• Further gas resource development from marginal fields and import of gas from Indonesia, JDA etc.
• Reconsidering of benefits & costs of future piped gas export to Singapore
• More sustainable basis for allocating gas for power & non-power sectors
• Leverage on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals being built by Thailand and Singapore
• Development of LNG regas terminal in Peninsular Malaysia
• Remove subsidy gradually

When there's fuel, there's natural gas. Petronas has warned us about petroleum reserves which will dry out by 2020. The production will decline 10% each year. What will happen by then? Yeps, we have our own oil but since the grade is high, the oil is being sold to other countries. Of course this comes together with certain contracts (with Japan for example is 20 years).

Someone may mention about using palm oil as alternative. Same thing. Selling the oil is more profitable than using it for power generation. As always.. money comes first. Not everyone is willing to sacrifice for the benefit of all. Not yet.