It is glad to hear that leading bumiputra entrepreneur Syed Mokhtar was granted an oil refinery project in Pulau Bunting in Kedah.
Malaysia currently have 4 oil refinery factory. Two own by Multinational Company, Esso and Shell respectively and another two own by Petronas, a Government Link Company (GLC).
Thus, Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar venture would be the first Malaysia private sector investment in oil refinery.
When South Korea government awarded LG group and Samsung to build a refinery respectively. Both company has used the profit from the refinery to fund their venture in electrical home appliance industry. Now, both Samsung and LG become an entity that able to compete in world market in microwawe, semiconductor and handphone market.
It is not sure whether governement of Malaysia impose any condition: eg: develop electrical home appliance market via Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar's Fiamma, or has to develop national car industry via EON or maybe government required him to acquired Proton?
It would be a waste if such a lucrative license or concession granted without any condition or plan to make any specific industry more competitive.
The project involved the establishment of the refinery in Pulau Bunting in Kedah, and the construction of a 300km pipeline straddling Kedah, Perak and Kelantan.
Aseambankers Research said the production of the crude oil would come from the Middle East and not Malaysia.
Operationally, the crude oil will be moored off Kedah, refined and transmitted through the pipelines to Kelantan and subsequently loaded on to tankers and shipped to Korea, China and Japan, by passing Singapore.
Thus, it look like the project would like Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar's other project: to compete with Singapore and make MNC by passing Singapore. Syed Mokhtar's Port of Tanjung Pelepas and Johor port has make Singapore port authority feel threaten and now he is working on Senai air port to do the same.
The oil refinery venture apparently another attempt to take some food from Singapore mouth again from their oil refinery industry.
However, other than oil refinery industry. We should have plan to make our other industry more competitive, like electrical home appliance industry and automobile industry.
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