NATIONAL oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) will pay its sole shareholder, the government of Malaysia, a dividend of RM18 billion for the year 2021. 

President and group chief executive officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz said the payment has been approved by the board.

“As I have responded when asked in other forums before this, the payment of dividends would always be based on assessment of affordability, after taking into consideration our ability to comfortably continue to fund our operations, service our debts and meet our obligations as well as invest in our future growth,” he said today at a press conference on the group’s 2020 financial results. 

Tengku Taufik said the group paid the government an additional RM10 billion last year, on top of a RM24 billion dividend.

“In 2020, we paid the scheduled RM24 billion dividend payment to the government. Recognising the challenges posed by the pandemic, we contributed an additional RM10 billion to the government.”

Tengku Taufik said Putrajaya has not asked Petronas for special dividends.

In 2019, Petronas paid the government a special dividend of RM30 billion in addition to the yearly dividend of RM24 billion, for a total payout of RM54 billion.

Petronas reported a net loss of RM21 billion for the year 2020 against a net profit of RM40.5 billion in 2019, after taking an impairment of RM31.5 billion.

The downward revision in commodity price outlook has resulted in most oil and gas companies, including Petronas, taking a significant impairment loss on their assets in the past year.

Excluding the impairment cost, the group registered a net profit of RM10.5 billion, which was 78% lower than the RM48.8 billion of the year before.

 The group also posted lower full year revenue of RM178.7 billion against the RM240.3 billion in the previous financial year, which was largely due to the effects of plummeting oil prices, which in turn led to lower average realised prices for all products. – February 26, 2021.