KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 27 — Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) sees its capital expenditure for the financial year ending December 31, 2021 (FY2021) at RM39 billion to RM40 billion compared to RM33 billion in the last financial year.
President/group chief executive officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz said the capex allocation would be largely for domestic spending at between 50 per cent and 55 per cent.
He noted that the group is also looking to ramp up its allocated investments for new energy and stepping out strategy to 9.0 per cent to 10 per cent to become a sustainable entity, depending on the board’s approval.
“In ramping up our capex efforts, we gave a runway of RM40 billion to RM45 billion annually for the next five years. The proportion that is going forward has traditionally being between RM1 billion and RM2 billion,” he added.
Executive vice-president and group chief financial officer Liza Mustapha said the group was looking to allocate investments which are able to yield faster returns.
“Most investments have their grace period of investments before the cash starts coming in,” she told reporters after announcing Petronas’ financial performance in the first half ended June 31, 2021 (FY2021) today.
The national oil firm has invested RM12.7 billion in the first half of the year, mainly attributed to upstream projects versus RM14.8 billion in the same period a year earlier.
The national oil and gas firm announced an additional RM7 billion dividend to the government, bringing a total contribution of RM25 billion for the financial year ending December 31, 2021.
It previously approved RM18 billion for FY2021.
Meanwhile, Petronas executive vice-president and chief executive officer of gas and new energy division Adnan Zainol Abidin said the group is on track to meet its internal target of 3 gigawatt (GW) of solar capacity under operation and development by 2024.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, we are steadily progressing ahead and constantly looking at both merger and acquisition opportunities but at the same time, to grow this organically,” he added.
During the first half of 2021, Petronas’ new energy segment grew its solar capacity under operation and development to over one GW.
These include 118 MW in Malaysia and 976MW in India through Petronas’ wholly owned distributed energy company, Amplus Energy Solutions. — Bernama
