Wednesday 21 January 2015

Malaysia net oil importer, surprise?

Article in The Star: "Govt reveals M'sia net importer of crude oil, petroleum products since 2014", some snippets (emphasis mine):


"In a surprise turn of events, the Government has disclosed that Malaysia is a beneficiary of declining crude oil prices because the country is a net importer, and not exporter, of the commodity and petroleum products, if liquefied natural gas (LNG) was not in the equation."


Surprise turn of events?

Anyone who had the data from the past and extrapolated it within reason should have suspected this.

If this was properly communicated to the public is another matter.

I wrote in the past the posting "Malaysian oil statistics are puzzling" based on an article of Claire Barnes.




I wrote: "Luckily for Malaysia, it is still a net exporter in gas, although production seems to have slowed down a bit in recent years:"




The price of Natural Gas has however also come down a lot, in tandem with the price of oil and other commodities.

3 comments:

  1. In two LNG price benchmarks, the price is down >40% since Oct 2014

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  2. Thanks, I wasn't sure which one exactly to use, but saw indeed similar numbers. That should have some impact on Malaysia.

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  3. Yes - as price of LNG is correlated with crude! I think it's a desperate attempt to put a +ve spin on things...

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