Petronas to announce specific incentives for O&G sector, says Idris Jala

Written by Daniel Kooo Tuesday, 16 November 2010 15:25

KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) will be announcing more incentives for the oil & gas industries soon as the government sets the stage for the country to be a regional hub for oilfield service, says Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala.

“There are a lot of opportunities for local players to participate in this – be it in the form of CONSTRUCTION [] work, or providing related oil and gas services. All of this will come into play,” he said on Tuesday, Nov 16.

While Jala did not provide a timeframe, he said the incentives companies could expect were the renegotiation of certain contracts for renewal like for those production sharing contractors such as Shell and Exxonmobil.

He was speaking at the opening of Schlumberger Ltd’s financial hub in Kuala Lumpur which will provide employment for about 400 people by next year.

Jala, who is also the Performance Management & Delivery Unit chief executive officer, said that the nine Entry Point Projects under the ETP also targeted multinational companies to locate their global or regional headquarters in Greater Kuala Lumpur or Klang Valley.

Two rounds of Steering Committee meetings have already taken place and many initiatives are in various stages of progress towards attracting more MNCs to relocate their headquarters to Kuala Lumpur.

As for the Schlumberger Financial Hub, it is part of the government’s Entry Point Project to attract 100 multinational companies to set up their global or regional headquarters in Greater Kuala Lumpur or Klang Valley under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) recently announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Their financial hub will provide financial and accounting services to Schlumberger’s businesses in Asia Pacific, Middle East, European and African regions and 75% of its employees hired here will be Malaysians.

“Malaysia was the obvious choice for this new facility. The country offers highly qualified professionals with excellent customer service attitudes,” said Schlumberger’s chief financial officer Simon Ayat.

“Malaysia is open to attracting knowledge based activities, offers an excellent business environment with the government committed to the development of education as well as the country’s infrastructure,” Ayat added.

Schlumberger Limited, is a United States’ based oil and gas services company which had been present in Malaysia since 1935 and has offices for its other business chapters in Kemaman, Miri and Labuan.

Taken from here...