Petronas, Petros court case adjourned

No resolution in sight for protracted legal dispute over Sarawak's gas processing and marketing rights

The sun sets behind the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The sun sets behind the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Photo: AP/SCANPIX
A Malaysian court has agreed to postpone for one month the latest hearing between Petronas and Petros in the protracted legal dispute over gas processing and distribution rights in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak.

Malaysia’s national energy behemoth Petronas and Petroleum Sarawak (Petros) on Monday informed the High Court in Kuching, Sarawak, that the parties jointly requested for the hearing to be adjourned for one month, as they adopt a collaborative approach to reaching a resolution.

Petronas in a statement said: “The adjournment was granted to allow the ongoing negotiations between the parties to continue.

“The parties are still involved in discussions with an aim of bringing matters to resolution.”

Petronas and its Sarawak state counterpart, Petros, have been locked in a dispute for around 18 months over the future aggregation of gas from Sarawak, the nation's largest state and home to some 60% of the country’s reserves.

The two sides had originally targeted a resolution by 1 July 2024 with the timeline then pushed back to October last year but today no end to the legal wrangle appears to be in sight.

The dispute has since embroiled UK supermajor Shell, which itself was granted a court injunction allowing the company to defer payments to Petronas for feed gas supplied to its gas-to-liquids project at Bintulu, Sarawak, amid its concerns that it perhaps should be paying Petros instead for these volumes.
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Published 25 August 2025, 05:28Updated 25 August 2025, 07:24
PetronasPetrosMalaysiaSarawakShell