Sabah oil doesn’t need another ‘broker’

M3Energy Berhad is just a rent seeking mechanism for the elite few at the expense of Sabahans.

COMMENT

In the 1980’s the Sabah Energy Corporation (SEC) was established to develop oil and gas projects in Labuan.  Asian Supply Base Sdn Bhd is one of its subsidiaries.

The SEC’s responsibility was to develop the integrated Sabah Gas Utilisation Project in Labuan whereby excess gases piped in from offshore fields are used to make hot briquette iron and methanol.

Excess heat was used for power generation.

But SEC sold off  the integrated gas projects. SEC is now responsible for providing gas for industrial use in the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Precinct (KKIP) but this however is limited to only 2 million cubic feet of gas sales daily.

In the 1990s the Sabah Government established Petrosab, a subsidiary of Innoprise, the business arm of Yayasan Sabah.

Petrosab owns two multi-purpose boats currently used as ‘fast crew boats’ to ferry offshore workers.

This agency could have been developed along the same lines as the Asian Supply Base in Labuan, Usukan and Kota Belud to service offshore fields in the North Western part of Sabah.

But this did not happen, simply because Petronas wanted to maintain just one offshore service off Labuan.

There are many other projects the state government can develop to generate employment opportunities for Sabahans other than establishing a broker company – M3Energy Berhad.

M3Energy Berhad is a complete waste of time and money. Its only purpose is to secure Petronas contracts and then sub-contracting to local companies.

Establishing it as part of the Sabah Development Bank Berhad is simply to obscure it from public scrutiny so that it is not subjected to the normal financial rules and regulation.

It is just a reflection of how state government ‘elites’ intend to create an opportunity niche for themselves, beyond government rules and regulations.

It is an ‘elite’ personal patronage system for a blatant rent seeking mechanism. This is no secret.

The territorial waters should be administered and managed by the Sabah state. There is no need for M3Energy Berhad.

It is in fact Petronas who should be asking the Sabah Government for oil and gas contracts and not what is being practiced now.

Zainnal Ajamain has held several senior positions in the civil service and government think tanks. He has worked as a lecturer, researcher, stockbroker and has published several papers in international media journals. He helped organise the United Borneo Front (UBF) grouping and remains active in politics.