BINTULU: Petronas yesterday appointed Sarawak-based North Java Sea Group Sdn Bhd (NJS) under its Vendor Development Programme (VDP).
NJS, which is a small and medium enterprise (SME) specialising in the oil and gas industry, will manufacture and provide rope-based equipment for Petronas’ offshore facilities and installations in Sarawak.
“The appointment of NJS under the VDP signifies Petronas’ continued efforts to develop oil and gas-related SMEs from the states where Petronas operates,” said its senior general manager of Group of Supply Chain Management Norliza M. Nawi.
She added the VDP would help local SMEs up-skill their capabilities through guidance and standard set by Petronas in order to meet the industry requirement for relevant products and services in Sarawak’s oil and gas industry.
The opportunity, she said, would also assist SMEs to strengthen and grow their businesses.
She said this after the signing ceremony for the appointment of njs in Bintulu, which was witnessed by Sarawak’s Minister of Industrial Development Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan. NJS was represented by its managing director Abdillah Yassin.
Under the programme, NJS will manufacture emergency escape rope ladder, pilot ladder and personnel transfer basket which are currently sourced from outside Malaysia.
This life-saving equipment is used at platforms and marine vessels to ensure the safety of personnel during their transfer from vessel or helicopter to platform and viceversa.
Established in Miri, NJS is currently the only company in Malaysia that manufactures such equipment.
The company’s emergency escape rope ladder called ANZIC was developed through in-house research and development and the design of the equipment was registered with Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) in 2010.
Petronas’ local vendor capability development is shaped through its licensing policy to develop resilient and competitive bumiputera vendors as well as Malaysian entrepreneurs in oil and gas-related manufacturing and technical services.
Since the formation of Petronas, participation of local agents has now largely evolved to become active and capable owner operators such as NJS. To-date, Petronas has 439 work scopes dedicated for owner operators, where they compete on a merit basis for contracts.
In 2013, a total of 1,200 Bumiputera vendors were the successful recipients of contracts under this competitive vendor development approach.
Other forms of vendor development initiative covers import substitutions categories, critical growth areas and development of SMEs.
Awang Tengah in his speech earlier hoped that Petronas would play a more active role in the VDP so as to increase the number of local Bumiputera entrepreneurs in Bintulu, particularly in the downstream activities of oil and gas industry.