Latest news with #SamirulAriffOthman
New Straits Times
03-05-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Petronas Carigali-Sarawak legal dispute may affect partners, contractors
KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd's legal dispute with Sarawak goverment may have cascading effects on partners, contractors and companies dependent on Petroliam Nasional Bhd-operated infrastructure or feedstock there, said analysts. They named Petronas Gas Bhd, Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd, Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd, Dialog Group Bhd and Sapura Energy Bhd as among those that may be affected. Sarawak's utility and telecommunications ministry had on May 1 issued a letter of demand to Petronas Carigali over alleged unauthorised operations at the Miri Crude Oil Terminal (MCOT). The allegation is based on non-compliance with Section 7(e) of the Distribution of Gas Ordinance (DGO) 2016, which regulates construction and operation of gas infrastructure in Sarawak. Petronas on Friday confirmed receiving the notices. The national oil company, however, said its upstream arm Petronas Carigali is operating in accordance with the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA 1974). The Act provides statutory authority for the company to carry out petroleum-related operations nationwide, subject to legal compliance. "While we respect the aspirations of the state of Sarawak, Petronas also has a duty to uphold the PDA 1974 and safeguard national interests," it said in a statement. Petronas said it remains committed to constructive engagement and will continue working closely with both the federal and Sarawak state governments. This includes collaboration with Sarawak's state-owned oil and gas firm, Petroleum Sarawak Bhd (Petros), to explore future arrangements that ensure regulatory clarity and operational continuity. "We are also committed to ensuring that the rights and interests of all parties, including end-consumers and investors, are addressed accordingly," it said. Political economic and international relations analyst Samirul Ariff Othman said uncertainty over infrastructure ownership, licensing and compliance in Sarawak will ripple across the industry. "Publicly listed companies involved in gas infrastructure, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and upstream activities in Sarawak will need to monitor the situation closely," he told the Business Times. BMI senior oil and gas analyst San Naing exopect the uncertainty will have a freezing effect on new investments in Sarawak, at least in the near term. Naing said Shell and ConocoPhilips, which operate large-scale projects in Sarawak are likely to be affected by the legal dispute. "ConocoPhilips has reportedly divested from one of the offshore deepwater projects recently. PTT Exploration and Production Public Co Ltd (PTTEP) has already postponed the final investment decision for investment in the Lang Lebah gas project. "It remains uncertain PTTEP's operator of the Lang Lebah natural gas and carbon capture and storage (CCS) project will materialise soon. Further delays to the project will adversely affect LNG production ambitions by PTTEP and Petronas," Naing added. According to Samirul, the potential ramifications for Petronas are significant. Sarawak holds over 60 per cent of Malaysia's total gas reserves and 40 per cent of its oil, including vital fields in the Central Luconia and Bintulu offshore basins. He said these provide feedstock to the Bintulu LNG Complex - a key export revenue generator - and to domestic industrial gas users. "Disruptions to gas licensing or terminal access, as is possible with MCOT, could delay LNG exports, raise compliance costs, and reduce overall revenue certainty," Samirul added. Meanwhile, Naing expects Petronas's strategic priorities and investment plans to focus more on resources in the shallow waters of Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. "Petronas is still able to manage oil and gas blocks in Sabah, but this may change in the future if the Sabah state government follows Sarawak's lead," he said. "Moving forward, maintaining an amicable relationship with the Sabah government remains critical for Petronas in managing the hydrocarbon resources there," he added. In a separate statement, Bersatu's youth wing Armada dismissed the Sarawak government's claim that Petronas Carigali is operating illegally at MCOT. Armada called the accusation baseless and inconsistent with existing laws. It said the PDA 1974 act clearly grants Petronas exclusive rights to regulate all petroleum-related activities across Malaysia. "Based on this legal foundation, Petronas does not require any licence or permit from the Sarawak government to conduct its petroleum operations in the state," it said. Armad reminded the public that in 1976, the Sarawak government had signed a formal agreement with the federal government, transferring ownership and control of its petroleum resources to Petronas. "Any claims that Petronas is operating illegally in Sarawak are clearly unfounded and contradict legal facts," it added.
New Straits Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Unplugging America: Trump, the WTO, and the End of Globalization
Samirul Ariff Othman The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 didn't just reset the clock — it accelerated a geopolitical rupture that had been brewing since his first term. To understand how we got here — to a fractured global economy, a paralysed World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the hardening fault lines of US–China decoupling — we need to go back to the original cracks that Trump so forcefully exposed. His disdain for the WTO wasn't some arcane gripe about trade law or bureaucratic overreach. It was about something deeper: unplugging America from the global manufacturing grid it helped build after World War II — a grid that connected Penang to Pittsburgh, Detroit to Dongguan. That grid, in Trump's eyes, had turned into a trap — empowering rivals, weakening the U.S. industrial base and outsourcing economic sovereignty to Geneva. At the core of that multilateral trading system lies a deceptively elegant idea: Most-Favoured Nation (MFN). It's the glue of global trade — if you offer one country a favorable term, you must offer the same to all. Designed to prevent discrimination and trade wars, MFN was the invisible infrastructure behind the predictability and stability of postwar trade. But it also tied America's hands. It made it difficult to reward allies, punish rule-breakers, or strike bespoke trade deals outside WTO constraints. Trump hated it. He saw MFN not as a framework for fairness, but as a straitjacket — one that locked the U.S. into a world of symmetric obligations with asymmetric players, most notably China. In Trump's narrative, China wasn't just a competitor; it was a chronic abuser of the global trade regime. The Chinese Communist Party had masterfully played the WTO system — subsidising industries, sheltering state-owned enterprises, hoarding IP, and still insisting on its status as a "developing country," a label that opened the door to special exemptions, leniencies and aid. That label might have made sense in 2001 when China joined the WTO, but by 2025, it had the world's second-largest GDP, its largest manufacturing base, and the geopolitical heft of a superpower. Trump wasn't having it. In 2019, he signed a memo telling US negotiators to stop treating China as "developing." To him, that wasn't legal nitpicking — it was about fairness. If China wanted to play in the big leagues, it had to play by big-league rules. And let's not forget the geopolitical jiu-jitsu China pulled with its WTO accession in 2001. That wasn't just economic liberalisation — it was a strategic coup. China used the WTO to hardwire itself into global markets, draw in foreign direct investment, and gain legitimacy. It promised structural reforms and delivered just enough of them to satisfy early doubters. The result? In less than two decades, China became the world's factory and the global supply chain was redrawn around it. American and European multinationals reoriented production to the Pearl River Delta. Even more striking was the collateral damage this caused in countries like Malaysia. Once hailed as a promising industrial tiger, Malaysia was blindsided by China's speed, scale, and strategic subsidies. Its textile and plastics industries faded. Low-end electronics production vanished. What economists now call"premature deindustrialisation" hit hard — Malaysia was pushed into the service sector before it had fully matured as an industrial economy. Meanwhile, back in the US, the backlash was louder and more politically explosive. Entire towns in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan lost their factories — and their futures. The now-infamous "China Shock," documented by economists like David Autor and Gordon Hanson, estimated millions of manufacturing jobs lost to import competition. Trump channeled that rage and trade became his battlefield. His war wasn't just with China — it was with the WTO itself. Nowhere was that more evident than in his sabotage of the organization's enforcement arm, the Appellate Body. Beginning in 2017, the U.S. began blocking appointments. By 2019, the system ground to a halt. No judges, no appeals, no enforcement. In Trump's view, the WTO had become a rogue court — ruling against US tariffs, second-guessing American trade remedies, and stepping far beyond its legal mandate. So did America leave the WTO? Technically, no. But functionally, it hollowed it out. Under Trump, the US began ignoring adverse rulings, slapping tariffs without waiting for legal cover, and negotiating trade deals outside the WTO system. The rules-based order became a suggestion — and a selective one at that. For Trump, Geneva was no longer a global commons; it was a liability. And if decoupling from China required breaking the system that facilitated its rise, so be it. Which brings us to now — what might be called the Age of Decoupling. This isn't just a rearrangement of shipping routes or the birth of "friendshoring." It's a wholesale reordering of the global economic logic that underpinned globalisation. Trump's return has hardened Washington's techno-nationalism and deepened the strategic divorce from Beijing. The WTO, already weakened, now looks increasingly like a relic. Instead of shared rules, we are entering an era of strategic blocs — where the ability to set standards and control chokepoints is the new currency of power. For countries like Malaysia, this is no longer just an economic challenge — it's a strategic crucible. The old playbook of export-led growth, free trade agreements and multilateral arbitration is no longer sufficient. Navigating between America's defensive techno-industrialism and China's production-heavy assertiveness will only grow more perilous. The WTO, once a stabilizing buffer, has lost its teeth. Trade diplomacy is now shaped by realpolitik. Industrial strategy must be recalibrated for resilience, not just efficiency. That means investing in technological autonomy, building diversified trade corridors and strengthening regional alliances. That includes leveraging ASEAN's strategic centrality and deepening commitments through frameworks like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which may serve as a hedge against great-power fragmentation. While these alternatives lack the enforcement muscle of the WTO, they offer a platform for mid-sized economies like Malaysia to remain economically relevant, shape standards and buffer against the volatility of a bloc-based world. Because in this new era, countries like Malaysia are not just competing for investment. They're competing for relevance in a global economy where rules are fluid, alliances are shifting and power is transactional. The question is no longer how to climb the value chain. It's how to stay plugged into a global grid that is being rewired — and to do so on your own terms, before someone else writes you out of it entirely. —————————————————————— Economist Samirul Ariff Othman is an adjunct lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Consulting. The views in this OpEd piece are entirely his own.
