Billionaire linked to offshore deals in Sarawak?

Low-profile Malaysian billionaire Ananda Krishnan has allegedly secured direct control of several of Sarawak's offshore oil fields, according to whistleblower website Sarawak Report in its latest expose.

It claimed that Pexco Group of Companies' Sarawak arm, which is controlled by Usaha Tegas Group - a company alleged to be privately held by Ananda Krishnan - had acquired over 25,000 sq km in offshore acreage.

This was based on Pexco CEO Sean Guest's own LinkedIn profile, in which he claims that Pexco Sarawak had last year itself signed four Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) for the offshore oil fields.

Pexco has been described as a junior oil and gas company, which means it would only conduct preliminary oil explorations before calling in bigger companies for a joint-venture in order to produce the oil.

Sarawak Report questioned the wisdom of the Malaysian government in providing control of the gas fields to a junior company, which it said would open up an avenue for Pexco to boost its revenue without directly drilling oil from the gas fields.

It also pointed out that the decision to hand Pexco these gas fields had never been announced formally by the Malaysian government, or by Petronas - the latter of which controls all of Malaysia's gas fields.

Petronas is normally known to welcome bidding for its gas fields by major oil companies without the involvement of any intermediary companies, which increases revenue for the public company and subsequently for Malaysia.

Sarawak Report further claimed that this deal with Pexco had been concluded with “utmost secrecy”.

The website has linked the decision to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's role as a "consultant" to Petronas, as he has long been touted to be a close friend of Ananda Krishnan.