KOTA KINABALU: The state government is in discussions with Mitra Energy, a Canadian-based company to pipe the natural gas from its field in the Philippines to Sandakan.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman said the discussion was being done through the government’s subsidiary M3nergy which has an offshore block in Sandakan that is close to Mitra Energy’s block.
Musa said this during the question-and-answer session yesterday that M3nergy’s Block SB305 is close to Mitra Energy’s SC56.
“I have requested the federal government to give Sabah the opportunity to explore SB305 and M3nergy is now in the final stage of discussion with Petronas in the matter. This block has a huge natural gas reserve and has high potential.
“We also feel that we can work together with Mitra Energy to pipe the gas from its block to Sandakan, a process that will be more economical for them,” he said.
He stressed that the state government was committed to explore and bring the natural gas to Sandakan to complement the supply from SB305.
Through this collaboration, Musa said he believed it would open up huge opportunities for Sandakan to become a strategic location for the development of gas related activities like IPP, urea fertilizer, gas and diesel among others.
“If we have the gas supply, we can do a lot of things and many will benefit from what will be implemented. I believe that with this find, although not that soon, will be able to provide us with the supply of gas that will allow us to build an IPP that can generate power for the east coast.
“This is what we have planned and we hope this will be successful,” Musa stressed.
Earlier when replying to Elopura assemblyman Datuk Au Kam Wah, Musa said that studies were being carried out in high risk fields and frontier exploration that involved complicated geological formation.
Au had asked Musa on the development of the crude oil and natural gas study being carried out in the east coast of Sabah.
The studies are in the preliminary stages and Petronas’ decision to develop the areas will have to take into consideration several factors, including security threat as well as environmental factors such as the coral reefs, marine landscape and its flora and fauna as well as the socio-economic impact on the local community.