US oil giant ConocoPhillips eyes Sabah market
KUALA LUMPUR: United States oil giant ConocoPhillips has set its sights on potential investments in Sabah while reaffirming its long-term commitment to Malaysia.
Its chief executive officer, Ryan Lance, said the company is currently in discussions with Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) regarding investment opportunities in the country.
"We are going to invest in Sabah going forward, and we are exploring many opportunities with Petronas," he told Bernama after participating in a Leadership Dialogue session titled "Gas and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG): Investing for the Long Term" here today.
The session, held as part of Energy Asia 2025, also featured other panellists, including Petronas Gas and Maritime executive vice president and chief executive officer Datuk Adif Zulkifli, and was moderated by S&P Global senior vice president and chief energy strategist Dr Atul Arya.
ConocoPhillips had announced on April 30 that it had exited from operating the Salam-Patawali deepwater oil and gas field, also known as Block WL4-00, off Sarawak's coast.
The field, discovered jointly with Petronas in 2018, was developed under a 50:50 joint venture valued at about RM13.7 billion (US$3.13 billion).
The company, in a brief statement, said that the withdrawal was part of a "country strategy review", without further elaboration.
According ConocoPhillips website, the company is engaged in various stages of exploration, development, and production activities across Malaysia, with working interests in five production sharing contracts (PSCs).
Four of these PSCs are located in waters off the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah: Block G, Block J, the Kebabangan Cluster and the Ubah Cluster, which was acquired in 2024.
Meanwhile, during the leadership dialogue, Lance said ConocoPhillips remains confident about its prospects in the LNG sector and is ready to develop more LNG projects.
Responding to a question on the emerging trend of longer-term LNG contracts, Lance noted that a mixed approach is emerging, with some multi-decade deals taking place in Qatar.
"Generally, customers want flexibility, shorter-term contracts with some destination flexibility. But it remains to be seen whether the developer, purchaser, or seller of the LNG will offer that kind of flexibility.
"That kind of optionality will be key to accessing arbitrage opportunities across global importing regions," he said.
Asked whether LNG pricing poses a barrier to entry into the Asian market, Lance said ConocoPhillips maintains a long-term, constructive view on pricing.
"There will be ups and downs, as there always are in this business, but overall the outlook remains positive over the long term," he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
an hour ago
- New Straits Times
UN bids to salvage global development summit after US boycott
SCORES of world leaders will be sweltering in the summer sun of southern Spain starting Monday at a once-a-decade United Nations development financing summit aimed at curbing global poverty, disease and the worst-case threats of climate change. Despite the scorching temperatures, though, a major chill looms over the event - the decision early this month by the United States, traditionally the world's largest aid giver and key finance provider, not to show up. UN countries want to close a US$4 trillion-a-year funding gap they now estimate prevents the developing world achieving the organisation's Sustainable Development Goals that range from cutting infant death rates to minimising global warming. UN Financing for Development summit starts from today. June 30 till July 3. Critics say the promises at the heart of the conference - called the "Seville Commitment" - are nowhere near bold enough. The measures, agreed by consensus after a year of tough negotiations, include tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-GDP ratios to at least 15 per cent, and shifting special IMF money to countries that need it most. The run-up, however, has been marred by the US decision to withdraw over what it said was the crossing of a number of its red lines, including the push to triple development bank lending, change tax rules and the use of the term "gender" in summit wording. The European Union only joined the summit with reservations, particularly over how debt is discussed within the UN. Speaking to reporters this week, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed described Washington's boycott as "regrettable", especially after its "catastrophic" recent aid cuts that she said had cost lives and livelihoods. Speaking alongside officials from summit host Spain and Zambia, which has helped organise it, she said the final outcome document agreed reflected both "ambition and realism" and that the UN would try to re-engage the US afterwards. Remy Rioux, chief executive officer of the French Development Agency, said Washington's withdrawal had not been a total surprise given Donald Trump's views. The hope is that agreements next week will allow bolder action at the UN climate talks in Brazil in November. "We will push for the new framework... (and) its operationalisation from Seville to Belem," he added, referring to the Brazilian city that will host COP30. Other measures to be announced include multilateral lenders automatically giving vulnerable countries the option to insert repayment break clauses into their loans in case of hurricane, drought or flood. Another buzz phrase will be a "Global SDR playbook" - a plan where the wealthiest countries rechannel the IMF's reserve-like Special Draw Rights they hold to the multilateral banks, who then leverage them as capital in order to lend more. Campaigners warn that it will fall far short of what is needed, especially as more than 130 countries now face critically high debt levels and many spend more on repayments than on health or education. Aid and support from rich countries, who themselves have rising debts, is dropping too. In March, the US slashed more than 80 per cent of programmes at its USAID agency following federal budget cuts spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk. Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have all made cuts in recent years too. The OECD projects a 9-17 per cent drop in net official development assistance (ODA) in 2025, following a 9 per cent decline in 2024. It looks set to hit the poorest countries hardest: bilateral ODA to least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa may fall by 13-25 per cent and 16-28 per cent respectively, the OECD estimates, and health funding could drop by up to 60 per cent from its 2022 peak. So what would be a good outcome in Seville, especially given the US pull-out? "We should make sure we are not backtracking at this point," said Orville Grey at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, referring to funding commitments. "We should at least remain stable."
New Straits Times
an hour ago
- New Straits Times
WTO key to resolving global trade tensions, says economist
ROME: The global tariff tensions initiated by the United States should be addressed through the multilateral platform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an Italian economics expert has said. Mario Tirelli, a professor of economics at the University of Roma Tre, told Xinhua on Friday that the current US-led trade disputes have broadened to affect nearly the entire world, including the European Union (EU), and are causing heightened uncertainty, something he described as "bad for the EU." "The most important sectors of international trade between the EU and the US are machinery and transportation equipment, which accounted for nearly 40 per cent of all EU exports to the US in 2024," Tirelli noted. These sectors, he added, are among the most severely affected by the newly imposed tariffs. He criticised the Trump administration's approach to trade relations, describing it as fundamentally opposed to multilateralism. "We have to try to move this type of negotiation back to multilateral platforms," he said, adding that the WTO remains the ideal venue where countries' concerns can be addressed openly and fairly. As the US has shown declining interest in supporting multilateral institutions such as the WTO, Tirelli called on the EU, China, and other like-minded countries to work together to uphold the multilateral framework. He said this collective support could serve as leverage to encourage the US to return to multilateral negotiations. As a professor of game theory, Tirelli acknowledged that reaching a trade agreement between the EU and the US would be difficult but emphasised that the EU is not necessarily in a weak position, provided its member states maintain unity. "European countries have to understand that negotiation power will be really weak if they are divided," he said. Tirelli also highlighted the importance of maintaining cooperation between China and the EU, noting that the 50th anniversary of EU-China diplomatic ties presents an opportunity to deepen bilateral trade and investment. "Through trade with China, the EU can achieve highly competitive gains in sectors like green energy, including electric batteries and cars," he said.
New Straits Times
2 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Nvidia insiders sold over US$1bil in stock amid market surge
NEW YORK: Nvidia insiders sold over US$1 billion worth of company stock in the past year, with a notable uptick in recent trading activity as executives capitalize on surging investor interest in artificial intelligence, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. More than US$500 million of the share sales took place this month as the California-based chips designer's share price climbed to an all-time high, the report said. Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang started selling shares this week for the first time since September, the SEC filing showed. Nvidia's stock hit a record on Wednesday, and the chipmaker reclaimed the crown as the world's most valuable company after an analyst said the chipmaker was set to ride a "Golden Wave" of artificial intelligence. Its latest gains reflect the US stock market's return to the "AI trade" that fueled massive gains in chip stocks and related technology companies in recent years on optimism about the emerging technology. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Nvidia's shares have rebounded over 60 per centfrom their closing low on April 4, when Wall Street was reeling from President Donald Trump's global tariff announcements. US stocks, including Nvidia, have recovered on expectations the White House will reach trade deals to soften the tariffs.
