Collaborations Involving Malaysia Upstream Regulator to Enhance Decommissioning

Abstract This paper aims to share the collaboration efforts of Malaysia's governing body for Upstream oil & gas industry with various stakeholders to enhance decommissioning in Malaysia. By virtue of Section of the Petroleum Development Act 1974, Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) ("PETRONAS") is vested with the entire ownership in, and the exclusive rights, powers, liberties and privileges of exploring, exploiting, winning and obtaining petroleum lying onshore or offshore of Malaysia. MPM manages the decommissioning liabilities for all Upstream petroleum facilities in Malaysia, specifically to strategize, regulate, promote, and drive decommissioning execution that is safe, cost-effective and brings the best benefit to the environment. Due to the shift in the industry with uncertainties in the long-term crude oil prices, depleting reserves, and operating cost challenges, it has made this non-revenue generating activity unavoidable. Thus, it is crucial to drive down decommissioning costs while protecting the environment. To achieve this objective, one of the focused initiatives pursued by MPM is through collaborations with relevant stakeholders such as industry players, upstream operators, government bodies, and academia. Such collaborations were found to be the fastest way to develop innovative solutions whereby the collaborators work together to achieve a common goal. Collaborations were done through, among others, constant and systematic engagements, workshops, brainstorming sessions, etc. A notable example would be in 2017, MPM successfully entered into a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOUs") with the Department of Fisheries ("DOF"), Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery Industry on rigs-to-reef. In 2020, MPM had successfully conducted a series of virtual workshops to capture decommissioning enhancement areas and lessons learnt with Operators and decommissioning contractors based on real-life experiences and past projects in Malaysia. A total of 115 enhancements areas were captured for consideration. Beyond these two items, MPM had successfully collaborated with many other stakeholders related to decommissioning and will continue to explore more collaborations in the future to support decommissioning in Malaysia. Details of these collaborations will be shared as part of this presentation. There were great experiences and important lessons that PETRONAS had learnt from these collaborations. PETRONAS believes that the culture of sharing experiences and lessons learnt will be the epitome for Operators and Contractors to work safely, stimulate creativity and strive towards decommissioning cost compression for every decommissioning project.