LNG

Petronas, the Malaysian state-control energy company, has finally confirmed reports of “force majeure” being declared on natural gas supply to part of its LNG onshore export plant at Bintulu in the state of Sarawak due to a pipeline leak caused by a landslide in the vicinity of the Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipeline last month.

The Malaysian plant has three liquefaction project divisions at Bintulu called MLNG Satu, MLNG Dua and MLNG Tiga, using the Malay words for one, two and three.

“This has impacted the supply of gas to MLNG Dua’s production facility at the Petronas LNG complex,” stated Petronas.

Petronas said it wished to clarify that the “force majeure” affects the supply of gas to MLNG Dua’s production facility only, while the other LNG production Trains  within the complex continue to operate as usual.

The Bintulu LNG plant has nine production Trains with a combined nameplate capacity of around 25 million tonnes per annum.

Mindful

“Petronas is mindful that this incident has impacted its delivery commitments to some of its contracted LNG buyers and it is in discussions to identify suitable mitigation efforts,” explained the Kuala Lumpur-based company.

The main buyers of cargoes from the three MLNG Dua liquefaction Trains are Taiwan’s CPC Corp. and Japanese utilities such as JERA Co Inc., Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas and Tohoku Electric.

Petronas added that it was also currently conducting a comprehensive evaluation to ensure the integrity and safety of the Sabah-Sarawak pipeline.

This is the second incident in a year to hit the Bintulu LNG export plant.

In September 2021 a fire broke out but was swiftly tackled and no production was lost at the facility whose main customers are also in China and South Korea as well as Japan.

Incident

That incident occurred at the sea-cooling water outfall channel located outside the process area and the plant’s emergency response team was immediately mobilised to the scene and successfully extinguished the fire.

Petronas said at the time that five contractor personnel sustained injuries in the incident and were immediately taken to hospital and later discharged from hospital after treatment.

Malaysia's overall LNG output increased by 4.5 percent last year to 24.94 MTPA, including all projects.

Japan is the main customer receiving around 10 MTPA from Petronas, followed by Chinese firms with around 6.5 MTPA and South Koreans with 5 MTPA.

This includes volumes from three floating LNG plants deployed in Malaysian waters producing over 4 MTPA.