He started his presentation by showing us a map of places across Malaysia where oil and gas are available. He also explained about how the country's coastline is determined, 20 nautical miles and 100 nautical miles-ish from the coast kind of thing. He shared with us on how losing ownership of a rock on the sea will effect our coast, for example the case in Brunei and also in Singapore.
We were exposed to how it all begin, from the exploration of the sea bed and examining the image of the contents beneath it, to the setup of platforms and drilling of wells. The average time for a well to be harvesting is around 5 to 10 years, and of course it does depends on the amount of oil available. There are different types of platforms catering for different depth. There are those which are built right from the sea bed and also those floating on the sea water.
Sanjeev shared a lot of things that we might not had known all this while (Well, maybe it's just me not knowing).
1. In the past, the extraction of oil was the main project for Petronas. While getting the oil out of the sea bed, there will be small amount of gas which is be extracted along with it. They used to burn these small amount of gas, that's why we would see a flare on these platforms. However, recently they had stopped burning these gas off, due to a new policy by the government. They will have to contain these gas and ship it.
2. During the extraction of oil, they don't actually suck the oil out of the seabed. After drilling down, they will let the difference in pressure work its wonder, and the oil will flow up to the platform (Hmm.. Didn't really know that). Therefore, they usually are only able to extract around 20-40% of the oil under the sea bed due to the pressure.
3. For the past 10 years plus, there are pipe lines for gas built throughout Peninsula Malaysia. These pipe lines are used to transfer gas from Kertih to all parts of Malaysia. Petronas, being the only supplier of NGV gas, usually have their petrol stations with NGV pumps built above or near these pipelines. Even our famous KLCC, is built above one of these pipe lines. KLCC itself is running on these gas, ie. they produce their own electricity for the whole building using gas. Cool..!!
Petronas has a long history in Malaysia, it was incorporated since 17 August 1974 and had always been the main source of revenue of the country. Being a company owned by the government, Petronas had explored around Malaysia for source of petroleum and gas, building refineries and plants. Besides developing locally, Petronas had spread itself to 35 countries around the world.
A few important places to know about on oil and gas are Kertih for Peninsula Malaysia, Miri and Bintulu for Sarawak, Labuan and Kota Kinabalu for Sabah. The first petroleum well and the only onshore well we have is located in Miri, Sarawak, known as the "The Grand Old Lady". Founded by Shell in 1910, this well had been operating for 62 long years. Other wells are all offshore, that is from the sea bed.
Bintulu, Sarawak is main town hosts the Petronas Liquidified Natural Gas (LNG) Complex, which is currently the world’s largest liquefied natural gas production facility. Gas from offshore around Sarawak coast are transported to this facility to be liquefied and transported to other countries. Even natural gas from Sabah is transported to this facility through a 500km pipeline from Sabah.
Kertih is the main point for oil and gas for the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. Remember the gas pipelines across whole of Malaysia mentioned above? It all starts here.
Personally, I find this Professional Development talk by Sanjeev very interesting and inspiring. It's something that we use all the time, petrol and gas. And getting to know a bit more on what is the real deal and how is it done, just makes me feel like appreciating and paying a bit more respect to the people working behind that makes pumping our petrol at the station such an easy process. Thank you so so much...!!
* the facts above are written according to what I remembered from the talk, so.. hehehe.. they might not be 101% accurate.. ^^
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