KUALA LUMPUR, 29 November 2003 — Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been appointed adviser to national oil firm Petronas, a report said yesterday. “(Mahathir) has agreed to be a Petronas adviser for quite some time,” Petronas Chairman Azizan Zainul Abidin was quoted as saying by the Malay-language Utusan Malaysia. Mahathir’s appointment as adviser was appropriate because he had contributed many ideas to improve Petronas’ operations previously, Azizan said.
Mahathir, who retired as prime minister on Oct. 31 after 22 years in power, was personally responsible for Petronas’s expansion overseas, Azizan said.
Mahathir this year urged Petronas to drop the dollar for the euro in its oil and gas trades, a move which it has already begun to implement by diversifying its currency portfolio.
Petronas has operations in 34 countries, which contributed 31 percent to group sales in the year to March, it announced earlier this year.
As at January, Petronas had total oil and gas reserves of 24.14 billion barrels of oil equivalent, of which 80 percent were domestic and the balance international.
Petronas, earlier this month, reported an 8.3 percent rise in first-half profits, helped by better refining margins as Asian oil demand surged.
Petronas said net profit for the six months to end-September stood at 8.96 billion ringgit ($2.36 billion).
The Fortune 500 company said revenue rose 17.6 percent to 43.94 billion ringgit from 37.35 billion in the same period last year. Revenue for the fiscal year to end-March 2004 looked set to surpass the record 81.43 billion ringgit the previous year.
As of Sept. 30, Petronas was sitting on 47.08 billion ringgit ($12.4 billion) of cash, down from 55.38 billion ringgit six months earlier. It gave no reason for the drop in reserves.
Petronas reported total debt of 60.87 billion ringgit, of which 74.6 percent was dollar-denominated, and 5.3 percent yen-denominated. Around 53 percent of its debt was due to mature in one to five years.
Petronas derived 32 percent, or 14.07 billion ringgit, of its revenues from international operations, 45.5 percent from exports from Malaysia and 22.5 percent domestically
