THE Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) Government will continue to protect the interests of gas consumers through the Ministry of Utilities and Telecommunications to ensure security of supply and equitable price throughout Sarawak.
Premier of Sarawak Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari said the Sarawak Government was able to control the distribution of gas, including LPG, under the Distribution of Gas Ordinance.
He said that liquefied petroleum gas was a controlled item and the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was fixed for the whole Malaysia under the Control of Supplies Act 1961.
Abang Johari, who is also Minister for Finance and New Economy, Natural Resources and Urban Development, Energy and Environmental Sustainability, said the household price of LPG was already subsidised up to 50 per cent by the Federal Government.
“The current controlled price for a 14kg LPG-filled cylinder is at RM26.60,” he said when delivering his winding – up speech at the State Legislative Assembly (DUN) sitting here today.
He said the Sarawak Government has successfully signed the Commercial Settlement Agreement (CSA) with PETRONAS in December 2020, which provided Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (PETROS) the role to regulate and monitor oil, mining and exploration in all the onshore areas of Sarawak.
Among the achievements that PETROS has made included a 29-year contract for Sarawak Onshore Block SK433, Adong Kechil in Miri-Marudi area; carried interests in all four new Exploration Blocks offshore Sarawak in the Malaysia Bid Round 2021 (MBR 2021) namely SK427, SK439/SK440 and SK437; and 1,200 mmscf/d natural gas resources volumes to drive the growth of the downstream industries, power generation and petrochemical hub in Bintulu as well as supporting downstream industries across Sarawak in the long term.
“We have achieved a greater share of revenues from oil and gas produced in Sarawak through State Sales Tax (SST).
“As mentioned by the Second Minister for Finance and New Economy (Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas) in his winding up speech, the SST collected from crude oil and liquefied natural gas since January 2019 has become the major contributor to our revenue, amounting to RM8.52 billion to date from the RM11.01 billion of the overall SST collected thus far,” he added.
