Petrol Malaysia

What is OPEC? OPEC stands for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is an intergovernmental organization, created in 1960 at the behest of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. These five countries are commonly called the Founding Countries of OPEC. If you stare hard enough at the OPEC logo, you might see four barrels of oil. Other countries which are members of OPEC include: Qatar (joined 1961),  Indonesia (joined 1962),  Libya (joined 1962),  the United Arab Emirates (joined 1967),  Algeria (joined 1969),  Nigeria (joined 1971),  Ecuador (joined 1973),  Gabon (joined 1975) and  Angola (joined 2007).

Oil prices are down. It's no secret. Oil prices are down and today's newspaper featured experts who estimated that USD40 to USD50 per barrel will be the new "normal" for the next five to six years. The days of multi-month bonuses are gone. The days of oil and gas being the lucrative sector are a distant memory.  The oil companies are now facing the reality of cheap oil: Hurrah say the developing nations! Hurrah say the advanced nations! And in the quiet corner of the room, the oil-producing countries shed their tears quietly. If you feel bad about being laid off, don't. It wasn't your fault. At least, if you were laid off along with a few hundred other folks. If you were laid off by yourself then it's probably you.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak shared a moment with US President Barack Obama. He was in Southern California for a working visit. Source: The Star The Prime Minister's Speech Sometime in February this year, the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak, stood before a crowd of Malaysian students in Southern California. He was there for a six day working visit, to meet 16 fund managers from 11 US firms in San Francisco. The Prime Minister was quoted in New Straits Times as saying: If you look at the oil price today and what it was one year ago, it means we would lose RM40 billion. Can you imagine, without GST, what kind of adverse impact it would have on not only the economy, but also the people’s welfare? It was his way of addressing the recalibration of the Malaysian 2016 Budget, in response to a projected revenue loss due to the dropping price of oil per barrel. It is not clear whether it also took into consideration the drop of the Ringgit. W...

On CIMB's website, there is a link to an educational website known as "Futures Fundamentals", run by CME Group. While I may not know much about the group, I found that this video, "The Story of Oil", is quite good. It comes from an article, "Gas Prices Explained." Aside from this nice video about oil, there's also a cool infographic about how oil prices are affected. It deals with the different stages of oil production, namely: Extraction Transportation Exchange Refinement Gas Station These are quite new to me, but no doubt, they are nothing new to those in the oil and gas industry. Maybe some of you kind souls out there can point me in the right direction so that I can understand more about each stage. Oil is such an important thing, many of our industries rely on it: logistics, industry, energy, plastics, etc. I found it interesting that the website, "Futures Fundamentals", has many articles on futures. While I don...

Kris Wiluan, one of Indonesia's 40 richest people. Picture taken from Forbes.com Kris Wiluan is a business magnate, and one of the top 40 richest people in Indonesia. He also happens to be a giant in the energy industry. His story may be seen as a series of lucky breaks, combined with his natural charm. In the 1960s, his parents sent him to Germany to study, but he turned up in England by mistake. His uncles convinced his parents that English was more practical, and so they allowed him to study in England. While studying in university there, he met his British wife. After graduating he became a programmer for Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, now GKN. Later, in 1976, he was offered to work for United Motor Works. A year later he began his own business. He began his business modestly, catering food and supplies to oil rigs, including videos and other entertainment. In an interview with the Telegraph, he describes his big break: One day, while transporting equipment for Dupont fr...

America's Richest Oil Tycoons. Source: http://money.cnn.com/infographic/luxury/americas-richest-oil-tycoons/index.html Today, I was surprised to find out that there are big oil tycoons in the USA. The no.1 and no. 2 spots in the USA are taken by David Koch and Charles Koch, two brothers. Together, the two brothers are worth USD89.7 billion, which is about RM332.28 billion. That's a lot of money, and almost 7 times the net worth of George Kaiser, who is the third richest oil tycoon in America. Their immense wealth comes from Koch Industries, Inc., originally an oil refinery which was co-founded by their father, Fred Chase Koch, in 1940. It was originally called the Wood River Oil and Refining Company. According to Wikipedia, Koch Industries Inc. is the second-largest privately held firm in America. Fred Chase Koch, the senior patriarch, had four sons: Frederick, Charles, David, and William (Bill). David and Bill are twins, but Bill was born 19 minutes later. I...

I found this visualization of the World's Biggest Oil Producing Countries over at Visualizing.org. Source I thought that I'd share it on this blog. I realised that the original image was too big and wound up being downgraded after uploading. So I broke it up into several images and uploaded it. Anyway, here it is: Overall summary of countries Saudi Arabia and Russia United States and Iran China and Canada Iraq and United Arab Emirates Mexico and Kuwait Brazil and Nigeria Venezuela and Norway Finally, Algeria.

Dear Reader, Congratulations if you have decided to visit this blog once again. It's been a busy few months for me and I have had very little time to update this blog. In fact, if there are volunteers who wish to take over this blog, I would like to hear from you. I'll transfer the domain name to you and the hosting is taken care of by Blogger.com (fully owned by Google) so there will be no hiccups with hosting. Some of you may have wanted to write your own blogs before; but you have wondered how to do it. The suggestions that I have is to always try to name your sources. If you come to your own conclusions, say so. There is no need to be a magician and put words into other people's mouths. :) Peak Oil and Dinosaurs Petrol and fuels will continue to dominate the headlines from time to time. Petrol is a finite resource; the words "peak oil" refer to a time where oil has been fully mined. When we were little children, we were told that crude oil was formed fro...

Dear Reader, My sincere apologies for not updating this blog recently. Thank you for dropping by to read. Introduction: The Two Blocks Recently, ex-premier Tun Dr Mahathir in his blog, Che Det , raised the issue of why nobody raised eyebrows when two oil-rich blocks in Sarawak became part of the state of Brunei. The two offshore blocks, named Block L and Block M, have been claimed by Malaysia based on historical facts. The ex-premier described the two blocks as containing reserves of nearly "almost 1 billion barrels" and remarked that Malaysia stood to lose "at least USD100 billion (about RM320 billion)". (Ref: Tun Dr Mahathir's blog, 12th April 2010. Malaysia's Generosity .) Tun Dr Mahathir had referred to three articles in his piece, namely: The Edge, 22nd April 2010. Murphy Oil says Petronas terminates PSC for 2 blocks. Quote: "... following the execution of the exchange of letters between Malaysia and Brunei on March 16, 2009, the offshor...