Challenging year ahead for Petronas
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Malaysian petroleum giant Petronas said the outlook for the rest of financial year 2012 will be challenging amid geopolitical problems in Sudan, where it has presence, and the unfavourable economic situation in the euro-zone economies and the United State
Petronas’ net profit for the second quarter ended June 30 dived 29.9 per cent year on year to 15.22 billion ringgit (Bt152 billion) from 21.71 billion ringgit while second quarter revenue fell at a slower pace of 3 per cent to 70.7 billion ringgit from 72.94 billion.
President and chief executive officer Shamsul Azhar Abbas said the renewed economic crisis in Europe and possibly the United States could put downward pressure on oil prices.
“We are now in the third quarter, it is going to be worse off. Why? It is very simple, lower profits will be due to [issues] in Sudan.
“For the next six months, we expect zero production out of Sudan and what is the impact on our bottomline? It is about US$1 billion (3.11 billion ringgit) a year. We are also impacted by gas production in Turkmenistan,” he said.
Locally, Shamsul said oil production in Malaysia “will remain a challenge” until 2014 mainly because of depletion of reserves.
