Sore losers behind anti-Bumi salvo against Petronas?

Bumi share up, not down. In my earlier posting Shamsul's RM100 billion in 3 years, I furnished numbers of the value of contracts awarded by Petronas to Bumiputera companies to show that the national oil corporation has never turned its back on the Malays, as claimed by some parties, including MTEM and an Opposition think-tank.  

Shamsul

Those numbers show that, contrary their accusations, Petronas has been doing more - not less - for the Malay companies. 

Despite that, I received e-mails from people asking me not to be lazy and to dig deeper. They said while the amount awarded Bumi companies may have increased, their share (percentage) vis-a-vis projects given to non-Bumiputera companies had dropped. That, they said, was what I should be concerned about.  

But that, I soon discovered, is yet another fallacy.  

Look at the table (and the accompanying notes):

In RM million
	1980 - 2009	2010	2011	2012
Majority Bumi	134,358 (51%)	25,974 (78%)	29,349 (91%)	52,483 (75%)
Others	129,209 (49%)	7,326 (22%)	2,927 (9%)	17,524 (25%)
TOTAL	263,568	33,301	32,276	70,008

If anything, going by official stats, it is the non-Malay/Bumi and foreign companies who should be protesting. Their share of projects from Petronas has shrunk rather markedly, from 49 per cent in 1980-2009 to well below 20 per cent in the last three years! 

So excuse me if I wonder if those guys who are campaigning against Shamsul Azhar Abbas, the Petronas CEO, don't have some hidden agenda. 

Like, did someone's company lose in its bid for a project?

Additional notes for Table:

·         The 1980s through 1990s was the period where Petronas was building most of its plants – refineries, petrochemical and gas processing plants - where quite a bit of jobs went to the foreign contractors as the highly complex technologies / proprietary technologies required were not available locally. Malaysian companies’ participation was mandated at 30% with preference for Bumiputera companies.

·         Following the coming on stream of these plants, Bumiputera companies had the opportunities to participate in the Operation & Maintenance services. Current participation of Bumi-majority companies  in the O&M services is consistently above 70%. The remaining 30% is largely made up of foreign companies supplying OEM products and services.

·         From 2013 to 2018, Petronas will be embarking on several capital intensive projects, both in the upstream and downstream sectors (for eg: Gumusut-Kakap, Sabah Oil & Gas Terminal, Kebabangan, North Malay Basin, RAPID, Re-Gas Terminals, Floating LNGs etc).

·         At the project stage, the EPCC contracts to build these highly technologically complex facilities could only be awarded to foreign contractors with technical capability and capacity. Malaysian participation is projected to be about 20% through competitive bidding at sub-contracting levels. Please note that although the percentage of jobs that go to Bumiputera and local companies decrease when Petronas implements world-scale projects with niche/proprietary technologies, the absolute value of the contracts awarded to them could increase. 

 ·     Post-commissioning of these facilities (i.e. from 2019 onwards), the O&M contracts are projected to be about RM28 billion per year for the life cycle of the plants (average 25 years) and 70% of these are projected to go to Bumi companies.