THE Sarawak government must end the ongoing talks between state oil company Petroleum Sarawak Bhd and Petronas over a new oil and gas sharing deal.

State rights group Sarawak Association for Peoples’ Aspiration (Sapa), said the state government must stand up to its rights over oil and gas in the state.

Sapa president Lina Soo questioned the need to discuss with Petronas on the state’s oil rights “when it is for Petronas to seek Petros’ approval to comply with Sarawak Oil Mining Ordinance”.

“It is for Petros to manage, to govern our mining activities and to give instructions on technical and financial arrangements to Petronas, but not to negotiate with Petronas in any way which can compromise Sarawak’s territorial and sovereignty rights,” Soo said.

The state government, exercising its recently reinforced Oil Mining Ordinance (OMO), has given Petronas until the end of next year to propose a “suitable” oil and gas sharing deal with the state.

But Soo said each day delayed means an economic loss to Sarawak.

The group, once declared an unlawful society by the the previous government in 2014, is ramping up the pressure on the state government not to yield to Putrajaya over its “God given” resources.

Last Saturday, Soo led some 50 Sapa members to stage a “petroleum protest” in the oil and gas town of Miri, demanding the national oil company fully comply with the OMO and other relevant laws.

Soo, who led the protest, later handed a 5-point demand memo to Petronas at its Lutong headquarters.

Among the demands were that Petros, and not Petronas, takes over control of the Shell-operated MLNG Satu liquified natural gas (LNG) plant in Bintulu – the country’s first – when Shell’s operating contract on it expires in 2020.

Petronas had been operating in the state unfettered since 1974 when the federal legislated law, the Petroleum Development Act, purportedly gave it exclusive rights to exploration and exploitation of petroleum whether onshore or offshore, and to control the carrying on of downstream activities and development relating to petroleum and its products.

However, in 2014, then chief minister Adenan Satem found the colonial era Oil Mining Ordinance, enacted in 1958, was still in force and had never been superseded by any laws, including the PDA.

Sarawak last year had also declared the PDA as null and void, and could not be enforced in the state as it had never completed the legal requirement for it to be enforceable.

It was never ratified by the Sarawak legislative assembly to give it the force of law.

The state has since ordered Petronas and all oil and gas companies that want to operate in the state to get in line and apply for the required permits and licences stipulated under the OMO.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg told a group of Sarawak students in London on Tuesday that Sarawak was “constitutionally entitled to licensing rights over its oil and gas resources”.

A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) today stated that “even the authorities in Putrajaya had acknowledged Sarawak’s rightful position”.

“We have the licensing rights and Petronas is the development part,” the chief minister was quoted as saying in the gathering at the Sarawak Foundation House in Bondesbury Park.

He was referring to the rights given to Petronas in the federal constitution.

To reconcile those facts, the chief minister said Petros “had been collaborating with Petronas” to ensure the state benefits from its oil and gas resources.

On why the OMO was never enforced in the last 40 years, Abang Johari said it was due to “some oversight”.

He reiterated that the state now has complete rights to its oil and gas, the state “would not compromise on what are lawfully Sarawak’s”.

The two-week trip would also take Abang Johari and his delegation to the United States, Canada and Dubai to “meet potential investors”. – September 27, 2018.