Petronas is undertaking a strategic review of its upstream portfolio to strengthen its competitiveness and sustainability over the next decade, as the global oil and gas industry faces mounting geopolitical, technological, and policy-related pressures.
Petronas upstream business executive vice-president and CEO Jukris Abdul Wahab emphasised the need for agility and foresight as the company navigates a fast-evolving energy landscape.
“We have to be cognisant of what is happening around us, namely geopolitics, jurisdictional changes, shifting policies, and global conflicts that influence energy markets.
“The future is going to be very complex and challenging. We need to ask ourselves how we want to position Petronas by 2035,” he said at an editors’ briefing this morning.
Jukris said Petronas had consistently delivered strong results over the past five decades, evolving from a fledgling national company into a respected international player.
He said that while Petronas remained a national oil company, it behaved and competed like an international oil company (IOC), in terms of operational execution and commercial acumen.
“We have come a long way and can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other IOCs.
“But to stay relevant, we must continue to review and reshape our portfolio, like other major players in the industry,” he said.
Jukris also said the group’s focus went beyond production to include the entire value chain, from discovery and development to delivery.
“The question is: how can we do this better, faster, and more competitively?” he added.
Separately, Jukris said Petronas was reviewing its operational and cost efficiencies, namely maintenance, field operations and logistics management, in response to the low oil prices, a trend it expects to persist.
“We are reviewing both our operational and cost efficiencies (as) the way we have done things over the past 50 years may not necessarily keep us competitive in the years ahead,” he said.
Jukris also said the US tariff environment had affected the global supply chain.
“It (the imposition of tariffs) affects the way we do business. The only thing that we can do is to respond internally and how we drive ourselves to become more cost efficient.”
He also said Petronas was assessing the need to bring in partners to reduce risk exposure, particularly for assets that require high capital investments but deliver limited value.
