During the past 40 years, the oil and gas services and equipment industry in Malaysia has built the experience needed to thrive in the region. This underscores the effort Petronas, the national oil company, has played in the growth and development of the industry in Malaysia. That experience has put the country’s industry players in a great position: they have honed their expertise to support the requirements of Asia-Pacific. This establishes Malaysia as a natural oil and gas hub for the region.

During this short period, the country also witnessed the growth that Malaysian companies have achieved to be among the top 200 oil and gas services and equipment companies in the world. Of the 200 companies, nearly 6% are Malaysian oil and gas services and equipment companies, based on Bloomberg’s Oilfield Services Competitive Peers Index. This is a remarkable milestone, seeing as Malaysia’s oil and gas services and equipment industry was still in its infancy in the early 1990s.

Although Malaysian firms were not spared from the low oil price environment, findings by the Malaysia Petroleum Resources Corp. (MPRC), a government agency tasked with the development of the oil and gas services and equipment industry, showed they have weathered the storm better than regional and international peers. The findings further found that Malaysian players are generally more diversified, providing a wider range of services across the supply chain than to their regional peers.

Of the top 20 oil and gas services and equipment companies in Southeast Asia measured by their revenue, nine are from Malaysia, eight from Singapore, two from Vietnam and one from Indonesia. Despite prevailing market conditions, Malaysian firms were not as severely affected as their peers in the region. This is a testament to the growing resilience of the Malaysian oil and gas services and equipment industry in an increasingly complex energy landscape.

Further details of the findings can be found in MPRC100, which ranks both publicly listed and privately held oil and gas services and equipment companies based in Malaysia. The ranking, based on the respective companies’ revenues, also highlights the growth of Malaysian oil and gas services and equipment companies.

Malaysian companies

Malaysia-based MISC Berhad is one of the largest FPSO/FSO owner-operators in the world, with operations spanning Malaysia, Vietnam and Brazil.

In 2007 Malaysia’s first deepwater development at the Kikeh Field, operated by Murphy Oil, located 120 km (75 miles) offshore Sabah at 1,300 m (4,265 ft), was executed by MISC Berhad’s subsidiary Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering (MMHE) and SBM and included the conversion of a FPSO unit.

MMHE also constructed a semisubmersible floating production and storage vessel (FPS) for the Gumusut-Kakap deepwater project offshore East Malaysia. Involving more than 5,000 workers, the FPS vessel was the largest of its kind to have been constructed entirely on land—MMHE’s dry dock yard is one of the largest in Southeast Asia.

Malaysia’s largest integrated player with a market capitalization of $2.6 billion, Sapura Energy Berhad (formerly known as SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd) owns and operates the world’s largest fleet of tender-assist drilling rigs, with more than 50% of the global market share. The company drills more than 400 wells annually and opened the first pipelay and ROV simulation facility in Brazil.

In the floating production segment, Bumi Armada Berhad is the world’s fifth-largest FPSO player and owns nine FPSO units, one floating storage unit and 49 offshore support vessels. It is present in 13 countries on four continents. In 2013 Bumi Armada won two contracts worth $1.4 billion to deploy, operate and maintain an FPSO vessel in Kraken, one of the largest oil fields on the U.K.’s side of the North Sea.

The Malaysia Pavilion

Learn more about about these companies and more at the Malaysia Pavilion at booth 9409.

In the Eastern Hemisphere, Malaysia will continue to host OTC Asia in 2018 with the theme “Excellence in Asia.” The OTC Asia platform has flourished during the years as a thought leader for the region in promoting ideas, collaboration and the newest innovations in the offshore oil and gas industry.