KUCHING: A wholly-owned Sarawak company Expro Marine Sdn Bhd (AEM) announced its re-entry into the oil and gas industry by signing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with seven international and local partners at Hilton Hotel here, yesterday.
The MoU signings marked a bold step by a relatively unknown local company to step into the void created by the Sarawak’s government move to give priority to Sarawak companies to actively participate in the lucrative oil and gas industry.
On the MoU, AEM said that the scope of services covered are inter-related and is anticipated to take AEM to the ‘extremes’ of offshore construction and installation services sector of the industry.
The seven partners are Baker Hughes, China Offshore Oil and Engineering Company, Ocean Tech, IO Setia Ventures, 1Diamond, Armada TPCE and Australian Centre for Energy and Process Training (ACEPT).
The ceremony was witnessed by Deputy Chief Minister, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Tengah lauded AEM’s move and considered it a game changer for Sarawak’s oil and gas industry and stressed that the landmark event must be emulated by other Sarawakian companies as it strengthens our stake in the industry.
“AEM, a fairly new Sarawakian company is leading by example in stepping-up and venturing into various aspects of oil and gas from drilling and well services, survey and positioning, hookup and installation, operations, vessels, pipelines, training to decommissioning.
“These are areas where participation of local Sarawak companies is somewhat lacking and needs to be increased,” he pointed out.
He added that Sarawak has a sizeable reserve of oil and natural gas that drives the state’s economic growth and create a solid foundation to further spur the state’s development agenda.
“In fact, our oil and gas industry started in Miri, when the first oil well was drilled at Canada Hill 107 years ago.
“Our oil and gas industry has achieved many technical milestones during the past 107 years, such as the world’s first Single Buoy Mooring (SBM) system for loading and offloading crude oil which was first successfully implemented in offshore Miri in 1960s; the world’s largest LNG plant in a single site was founded in 1982 in Bintulu being a sleepy fishing village before that.
“The first gas to solid pilot plant in the world with unique synthetic petrochemical products was also founded in Bintulu in 1993, the first Real Time Operation Centre (RTOC) for drilling across Asia Pacific region (from China to New Zealand) was established in Miri in 2006 and the first floating LNG plant (FLNG) was commissioned offshore Bintulu in early 2017,” he pointed out.
Tengah added that the oil and gas industry has also created a pool of capable and competent workforce.
“I am proud to say that we have many capable and skilled Sarawakians serving, shaping and leading the industry, locally and internationally, from the leaderships at the boardroom and management level to the technical professionals and to the shop floors of work barges and platforms offshore,” he said.
Tengah who is also Minister of Industrial and Entrepreneur Development, Trade and Investment stressed that under Sarawak Corridor of Renewal Energy (SCORE) Development Plan, the oil and gas industry has been identified as one of the 10 priority industries and in line with this strategic direction, Sarawak is promoting and developing more downstream high value added activities.
Citing one of the initiatives undertaken by Sarawak was to encourage the establishment of petrochemical industry, leveraging on the availability of natural gas, he believed that the petrochemical industry will provide Sarawak with the technological advancement, high paying jobs for the people and greater spin-offs to the local small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“Sarawak can take advantage of the availability of our natural gas resource as feedstock and the existing infrastructure setup in Bintulu to be a thriving and vibrant petrochemical hub in the region.
“In tandem with our state’s ambitious plans, our local SMEs will need to grow and expand their capability and capacity from the basic ‘low value, low-tech’ category to ‘high value, high-tech’ category, in order to participate in the full spectrum of the oil and gas contracts,” he said.
Acknowledging that there are many challenges facing the oil and gas industry, he said it can also be a good time and opportunity for companies to re-focus their priorities and intensify their strengths so that they are ready to leap forward when the economy rebounds.
Tengah hoped that the MoU signing ceremony will be the first of many more to come, in response to the government’s call for greater participation of Sarawak companies in the oil and gas industry.
