Pump up the volumes: Petronas to supply more gas to the state of Sarawak

Malaysia’s national energy giant Petronas is to supply additional volumes of gas to Sarawak Energy and Sarawak Petchem (SPSB) in the energy-hungry East Malaysian state.

Petronas on Tuesday launched the development of a gas delivery terminal at Tanjung Kidurong, Bintulu — where its Petronas LNG Complex is located — that will from 2023 supply natural gas to the two companies.

The Bintulu Additional Gas Sales Facility (BAGSF-2) is designed with capacity to deliver up to 390 million cubic feet per day of gas. It will occupy 70 hectares of land and will have its own dedicated administration building, processing area, metering stations and utilities.

BAGSF-2 will supply 160 MMcfd of natural gas to a Sarawak government-owned methanol plant, which will be operated by SPSB. The methanol plant is being built at Tanjung Kidurong. A further 70 MMcfd will be supplied to Sarawak Energy’s Tanjung Kidurong power plant.

BAGSF-2’s remaining capacity will allow the facility to supply other customers.

Power generation

Six years ago, Petronas signed an agreement with the Sarawak government to supply it a total of 450 MMcfd of natural gas for power generation and state-owned petrochemical industries.

In 2021, the company signed another memorandum of understanding to increase gas supply to Sarawak to 1.2 billion cubic feet per day.

Petronas has not yet responded to an Upstream inquiry as to which fields currently supply and would in future supply these gas volumes to the Sarawak-based customers.

“The development of BAGSF-2 marks another significant milestone in our commitment to working together with the Sarawak State Government for the sustainable growth of its oil and gas industry,” Petronas chief executive Tengku Muhammad Taufik said.

“Once on stream, BAGSF-2 will create new value-adding activities for Sarawak’s hydrocarbon resources, supporting the state’s aspiration for its petrochemicals and domestic power industry. We look forward to building on the strong partnership with the state government in developing Sarawak’s resources for the mutual prosperity of the state and the nation.”