KUCHING: Sarawak has 200 discovered oil and gas fields which remain undeveloped, said Suarah Petroleum Group (SPG) vice president Abang Iskandar Abang Muas.
He said that the issue here was that there was no plan or projects in place for the resources.
“If you go and ask those international oil and gas companies, they will ask where will your gas land? What will the gas become?” he said.
He was speaking at a forum themed ‘Fight for Our Rights, Fight It Right’ on the history and future of Sarawak’s oil and gas, organised by SPG at the Sarawak State Library yesterday.
He said the state had 34 gas and 26 oil fields, producing 850,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Touching on oil and gas infrastructure, Abang Iskandar said Sarawak had about 300 platforms.
“Should we fight to control the infrastructure?” he asked, explaining that oil and gas was a difficult, specialised, and capital-intensive business.
“The first step is doing geological studies. Next, seismic surveys have to be conducted followed by interpretation,” he said.
He noted that interpretations could vary depending on the interpreter.
According to him, the next step would be exploration drilling deep into the sea and ground. “Only then you can develop and produce. This is high risk, high reward.”
Abang Iskandar cautioned that if Sarawak gets its oil rights back, with wealth comes a curse as well, pointing out that half of all wars and sufferings are contributed by conflicts due to oil.
“Historically, many countries with oil and gas have their problems too, so we must be careful,” he said.
Also present were Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring) Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali; Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah and Batang Sadong MP Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri.
