Petrol Malaysia

While I was browsing my Google Plus timeline, I came across this. Apparently in Japan and Korea, petrol pumps hang from the ceiling. This solves the issue of parking your car just right so that the pump is located next to where you pump the petrol i.e. the fuel filler cap or petrol cap. I once read from a book, car manufacturers make cars with their petrol caps on left and on the right so as to make sure that petrol stations won't have people queueing up for petrol pumps of a certain sort only. For example if all cars had their petrol caps on the left, drivers would want to park on the right of the fuel pump so as to fill up their car fuel tanks. Lefts and rights are all right as a solution when petrol pumps are located at chest level -- you need to pull them over to the petrol cap, and the closer the petrol cap is to the pump, the better. However, if petrol pumps hang from the ceiling, the issue of which side is the "right side" would not even come up. Here are ...

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 Malaysia's stock exchange and ringgit currency recently took a beating due to falling oil prices. According to the Star: The plunge follows an Opec decision not to cut production despite a huge oversupply in global markets. ... it [price per barrel] could plunge all the way to US$32.40 per barrel. Oil prices fell to their lowest in five years yesterday due to the production war between Opec and the American oil boom from shale oil producers. In recent months, the United States has become a major producer of shale oil and gas – fuel that’s extracted from rock fragments – threatening the position of Saudi Arabia as the dominant oil-producing country. In response to the threat, Opec, which is influenced by Saudi Arabia, has vowed to continue production of oil in a market where supply has outstripped demand. This has led to a free fall in global oil prices that have declined by more than 40% since July this year. Source Malaysia is a net exporter of oil, and...

Dear Reader It's been more than 5 years since Mr. Paul Tan wrote his article " How Fuel Prices Are Calculated in Malaysia ". Other blogs have also covered this issue. To recap, the oil automatic pricing mechanism (applied in Malaysia since 1983 ) was based on the following: Cost of Product - Based on Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) Alpha petrol - 5 sen / liter diesel - 4 sen / liter Operational Cost Peninsular Malaysia - 9.54 sen / liter Sabah - 8.98 sen / liter Sarawak - 8.13 sen / liter Oil Company Margin petrol - 5 sen / liter diesel - 2.25 sen / liter Petrol Dealer Margin petrol - 12.19 sen / liter diesel - 7 sen / liter Sales Tax / Fuel Subsidy petrol - 58.62 sen / liter diesel - 19.64 sen / liter subsidy if price higher than retail price tax if price lower than retail price As we can see, the subsidies are quite substantial compared with the alpha, the margins and the operational costs. PerakToday noted that MOPS is based...

Dear Reader The retail price of RON95 and diesel will be based on a managed float from now on. Here is the press statement for the announcement, which I received from a friend: KENYATAAN AKHBAR PELAKSANAAN PENGAPUNGAN TERKAWAL (MANAGE FLOAT) BAGI PETROL RON95 DAN DIESEL Dimaklumkan bahawa Kerajaan melalui Mesyuarat Jemaah Menteri hari ini telah memutuskan bermula dari 1 Disember 2014, penetapan harga runcit bagi petrol RON95 dan diesel adalah mengikut kaedah pengapungan terkawal (managed float). Kaedah ini adalah sebagaimana pelaksanaan penetapan harga runcit RON97 sedia ada sejak Julai 2010. Harga runcit produk petroleum di Malaysia ditentukan melalui kaedah Automatic Price Mechanism (APM) sejak tahun 1983. Melalui APM, Kerajaan akan menetapkan harga runcit pada satu paras tertentu dimana perubahan kos produk tidak akan mengubah harga runcit. Walau bagaimanapun, melalui pengapungan terkawal (managed float) ini, purata perubahan kos produk akan menentukan penetapan harga bag...

After a long while, I've decided to write a post for this long-neglected blog. One of the topics that we don't talk about much in Malaysia is "peak oil". "Peak oil" is based on the theory formed by M. King Hubbert, a geoscientist who worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. (Source:  Wikipedia entry on M King Hubbert ) In simple words, "peak oil" refers to that point in time when the production of oil in a certain area starts to decline. The production of oil in that region would follow a bell-shaped curve. (Source: Wikipedia entry on Hubbert peak theory ) In other words, after production has "peaked", it becomes more difficult to produce oil. In other words, the "peak" in peak oil refers to the peak predicted by Hubbert's theory, i.e. the top of the bell-shaped curve. The theory is applicable to resources other than oil. Simply explained, production of oil follows the bell-shaped curve predicted by Hubber...

Dear Reader, Until 2010, Petronas, Malaysia's state-owned petrol company, was helmed by Tan Sri Hassan Marican. After having left Petronas, Tan Sri Hassan was appointed to Singapore's Sembcorp Industries on that same year. Recently, The Malaysian Insider reported that Tan Sri Hassan Marican has been appointed to the board of several Singapore government-linked companies and will be appointed to head Singapore Power Limited (SP) in June this year. KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 15 — Ex-Petronas CEO Tan Sri Hassan Marican is set to become chairman of Singapore Power Limited (SP) in June succeeding Ng Kee Choe who will retire on June 12, according to Energy Asia. The news portal that focuses on the energy industry reported this yesterday, citing the island republic’s utility giant. Marican, who left the national oil company at the beginning of 2010 allegedly due to friction with the Najib administration, has been accepting directorships with several foreign firms in the energy sector. ...