The 12th Malaysia Plan Underlines the Importance of Natural Gas in Malaysia’s Energy Transition Towards Carbon Neutral by 2050
Kuala Lumpur, 27 September 2021 – Malaysian Gas Association (MGA) applauds the commitment made by the Malaysian government to achieve carbon neutrality as early as 2050 as announced by Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob, Prime Minister of Malaysia, during the tabling of the 12th Malaysia Plan in the Parliament on 27 September 2021.
MGA is delighted that the role of natural gas in the clean energy transition towards carbon neutrality for Malaysia was clearly underlined in the Prime Minister’s speech during the tabling. In order to expedite the transition, natural gas has been singled out as the replacement fuel to coal-fired power plants. As the cleanest burning fuel, natural gas plays an important role in providing clean, secure, reliable, and flexible
energy to drive Malaysia’s socio-economic growth. Natural gas has been a key fuel in driving the nation’s rapid economic growth in the past decades. The Malaysian gas industry itself brings in over RM135 billion of economic impact annually and creates over 80,000 jobs in the wider economy.
As the first organisation to call for the development of a comprehensive Natural Gas Roadmap (NGR), MGA is pleased that the 12th Malaysia Plan has identified NGR as one of the priority strategies in ensuring sustainable energy for all. The NGR will be developed to provide medium and long-term directions towards a sustainable gas industry, focusing on liberalising the gas market and increasing domestic gas demand.
A fully liberalised or open gas market sets the path towards a vibrant and sustainable natural gas industry. The nation benefits from enhanced energy security and reliability. Furthermore, a vibrant market will encourage greater utilisation of gas, thereby stimulating more business opportunities and investments throughout the gas industry value chain.
However, liberalising only the gas market will create an imbalance in the entire energy market. MGA is therefore encouraged that the 12th Malaysia Plan will review the Electricity Supply Industry that includes allowing Third Party Access to the grid and thereby potentially liberalising the electricity market.
MGA also welcome the upcoming release of the comprehensive National Energy Policy that is expected to streamline and harmonise all energy-related policies, thus providing an overarching framework to address issues across energy-consuming sectors. As a fuel that serves all the energy-consuming sectors, natural gas will be expected to play a prominent role in providing cleaner and more reliable energy sources.