KUCHING, Jan 11 — Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said he will delay pushing Putrajaya to increase oil royalty payments to his state, after the falling price of the commodity forced the federal government to revise its Budget for the year.
“The present oil price is now under US$35 per barrel against US$115 per barrel over a year ago, so we have to go slow in our demand until the price has gone up to a certain level,” he said at the signing of a contract agreement between Talisman Malaysia Limited and OceanMight Sdn Bhd.
The contract is for the engineering procurement construction of a wellhead platform for the Kinabalu redevelopment project here.
In 2014, the Sarawak state assembly unanimously adopted a resolution demanding that the federal government increase the royalty from 5 per cent to 20 per cent.
Adenan said he expected the oil price may suffer further with the influx of Iranian crude into the global market.
“Anyway, let’s hope for the best,” he said, adding that asking for the increase in oil and gas royalty is on top of other revenue from the oil and gas industry that Sarawak is asking from the federal government and Petronas.
“We want to derive more income from oil and gas because we need more money to develop the state, in order to catch with the peninsula,” he said, admitting that Sarawak is far behind peninsular Malaysia in terms of physical and economic development.
Saying that Sarawak has a lot of catching up to do, he said he projected that it will achieve a developed status by the year 2030 or 10 years after the peninsula hopes to achieve that goal.
