Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian energy giant Petronas’ shipping arm MISC has allocated $1bn for capital expenditure (capex) in 2015, up 43% from $700m allocation for the previous year.
“The capex this year is mainly for the construction and delivery of new LNG carriers, for which we secured a contract from Petronas in the first quarter of this year, and it will also be used for the offshore operations.” Yee Yang Chien, president and chief executive officer of MISC, said at the company’s annual general meeting yesterday.
The newbuild LNG carriers are expected to be delivered to MISC from September 2016 to December 2017.
Yee said the petroleum segment is expected to see positive growth, which will offset weak results by its marine and heavy engineering divisions. “Our growth will be focused on maritime and maritime-related oil and gas services. We will not stray away from our core competency of maritime,” he said, adding that falling oil prices have minimal impact on freight rates, which are directly driven by supply and demand for oil, not the oil price.
