MGA’s  Q1 Industry Talk on ‘The Journey  Towards a Liberalised Natural Gas Market’ attracted  over 100 members and invited guest

MGA conducted its first  Industry Talk of  2019 by  bringing to the table a mixture of academia and industry experts to discuss a very important topic on “The Journey Towards a Liberalised Natural Gas Market”.  The session was conducted on 26^th Mar  2019 and held in collaboration with Faculty Economics and Administration  (FEA), University of Malaya (UM).  The topic and  list of panel speakers  were very interesting indeed that it managed to attract  over 100 MGA members  and invited guests to attend the  2 hour  talk which was held in the  Lecture Hall 3 of  FEA.

The theme of the talk was chosen to leverage on an academic paper published by UM in Jan 2019, called “Natural Gas Industry Transformation in Peninsular Malaysia: The Journey Towards a Liberalised Market”.  The paper provides a  comprehensive report on Malaysia’s gas market liberalization and is believed to be the only document that comprehensively charts the journey, from the rationale and drivers to liberalise the market, to execution of the plans and to the current status today.

There was two parts of the talk, the first part was a presentation by UM (Lim Zhen Wen) who  gave  a good context setting on the background, case for change and the  journey itself. The second part was the panel discussion participated by 4 subject matters experts from the industry who discussed about the journey’s progress and way forward from diverse perspectives.  They were  Azuhari Che Mat,  Principle Assistant Director of Gas from Ministry of Economic Affairs,  Rumaizi Abd Halim, Head of Third Party Access  from Energy Commission,  Abdul Razak Saim, Head of Business Development & Commercial from Petronas Gas Berhad, and   Dr. Renato Lima de Oliveira, Senior Fellows from  Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.  The session was moderated by Seah Suying,  MGA Vice President and also UM FEA  alumnus.

The MGA President’s speech  which was  delivered by Seah Suying,  urged all stakeholders from public and from across the industry to work together to formulate a comprehensive Natural Gas Roadmap to drive the nation’s socio-economic progress by actualising the full potential of Malaysia’s natural gas industry and spurring the low carbon economy.

In summary, the overall feedback was very positive as the talk presented different speakers of deep knowledge and authority sharing diverse viewpoints  and insights on how Malaysia’s oil and gas sector has evolved over the years and how a clear natural gas policy will enable the next big leap for the industry.  The audience also complimented the effort by MGA for collaborating with UM,  paving  the way for more  industry-academia integration  in the future.