Malaysia's Petronas Hits Record Profits

Malaysian state energy company Petronas Bhd. (Petroleum Nasional Berhad) has announced a record profit of 18.1 billion dollars for 2007-08 and said it is still keen to develop Iran's Pars liquefied natural gas project. Last year, Petronas posted a net profit of 12.9 billion dollars that was also an all-time record.

According to Mohamad Hassan Marican, president and chief executive of Petronas, the company has performed quite well. He said it is another historic set of numbers for Petronas Group. Moreover, he added, Petronas was still pursuing the 2.0-billion-dollar LNG joint venture project in Iran but that it had not completed negotiations with the Iranian government due to rising costs.

Iran has the world's second-largest reserves of natural gas. Hassan said that the company cannot come to a final decision because its need to make an assessment of the price, costs and the viability of the project. Moreover, he said that Petronas had the resources to participate in the project on its own, after Total, a French energy giant, dropped out of what was supposed to be a three-party development with the Iranian government.

The South Pars field in the Gulf has around 500 trillion cubic feet (14 trillion cubic meters) of gas that represents about eight percent of world reserves. France's Total SA had a 30 percent stake while the National Iranian Gas Export Company holds the remaining 50 percent. Petronas has a 20 percent stake in the Pars LNG production company that was set up in 2004 to build a liquefaction facility in Iran. However, the French company's chief Christophe de Margerie said earlier this month that it was too politically risky to invest in Iran at present.

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