Malaysia Charging Ahead in Net Oil Importing Country Status

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Rocket thrusters are firing for Malaysia to firmly being a net oil importing country.

Note that the RAPID project is nowhere near Malaysia's East Coast oil producing states or the Borneo oil producing states of Sarawak and Sabah.

Nope, the RAPID project is just North of Singapore, and much of the crude oil feedstock for the RAPID project will be imported from Saudi Arabia (and Iraq, if I remember correctly).

Malaysia has already been a net oil importing country since around 2015 or 2016 - difficult to determine exactly when oil imports outweighed oil exports.

Malaysia will continue to be a net energy exporting country due to LNG exports (which are all from MLNG in Bintulu, Sarawak).

Perhaps the Malaysian government needs to rethink the upcoming budget for 2019, as an increase in oil prices in 2019 will cause the price of Saudi crude oil imports to increase, which will increase the feedstock for RAPID.

What I am saying is, by next year, it appears to me that high oil prices will not be overall beneficial to Malaysia.

I fully expect others (especially Malaysians) to disagree with my opinion.  Not a problem.  Just please think through the actual situation before any knee jerk over-reaction.

Here be the news:

Aramco plans to ship first crude oil to Malaysia JV refinery in Oct — sources

Saudi Aramco plans to deliver the first crude oil cargo to its joint-refinery project with Petronas in Malaysia in October as the companies prepare for trial runs at the new plant, several sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

The project, Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID), is a US$27 billion complex located between the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea, conduits for Middle East oil and gas bound for China, Japan and South Korea.

RAPID is one of four new refineries in Asia, with a combined crude processing capacity of nearly 1.3 million barrels per day, scheduled to start up from late 2018 to 2019. These plants will increase Asia's crude demand while adding to fuel output in the region, traders and analysts said.

... RAPID will contain a 300,000-bpd refinery and a petrochemical complex with a capacity of 7.7 million tonnes a year. Refinery operations are set to begin in 2019, with petrochemical operations to follow six to 12 months afterwards.

Saudi Aramco will supply 50% of the refinery's crude oil with an option of increasing it to 70%.