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  • Oil & Gas
16 July 2019

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  • Vietnam

The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) gained a total revenue of 365.5 trillion dong ($15.8 billion) in the first half of this year, 18 per cent above its six-month plan.

The corporation’s equity reached 470.3 trillion dong on June 30, up one per cent from January 1.

PVN contributed 53.5 trillion dong to the state budget, 16 per cent above its target, and 61 per cent of the year’s target.

In the first six months of this year, the state-owned firm has also successfully fulfilled production plans. It produced 11.52 billion kWh of electricity, exceeding its plan by 2.1 per cent, and 705,800 tonnes of nitrogenous fertiliser, 10 per cent higher than the goal.

Petroleum production hit 5.66 million tonnes, exceeding the six-month plan by 48,000 tonnes.

To fulfil this year’s business goals, the group will keep a close eye on global oil prices to use the most effective management, according to PVN.

The firm also plans to rationally balance production output, export and processing of oil-gas and electricity so as to ensure targets set by the government on growing gross domestic products, state budget collection and national energy security.

It will also promote the use of scientific solutions and technology to improve efficiency.

According to PVN, also in the first six months, a number of member companies were among Forbes’ list of 50 best listed companies in Vietnam this year.

The companies include PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Company, PetroVietnam Transportation Corporation, PetroVietnam Power Corporation, Petro Vietnam Fertiliser and Chemicals Corporation and PetroVietnam Insurance Corporation.

  • Electricity/Power Grid
16 July 2019

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  • Vietnam

HÀ NỘI – Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has urged ministries and agencies to work to avoid upcoming power shortages.

Many key electricity projects, especially large-scale projects that are expected to be completed in 2023, have been delayed, leading to a risk of electricity shortages from 2021.

The Government leader urged officials to prepare plans to hasten the projects at a Government meeting held in Hà Nội on Monday.

He told them to submit a draft plan the Government soon.

The State Bank will consider allowing the projects to exceed credit limits to finish on time, while Vietnam Electricity (EVN) and the Việt Nam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group (Vinacomin) will focus all resources on completing them.

Ministries, sectors and localities should create favourable conditions for power projects and remove difficulties for them, the PM said.

Besides that, he said the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and the State Capital Management Committee should submit to the Government solutions relating to development of the Thái Bình Thermal Power Project 2 and report on issues relating to the Electricity Planning VIII and the Quảng Trạch Thermal Power Project 1.

At the meeting, the Prime Minister agreed on the principle of buying all electricity from small hydro-electricity and solar power plants if they meet requirements to connect to the grid.

The PM also said the MoIT, EVN, Vinacomin, Việt Nam Oil and Gas Group and the State Capital Management Committee need plans to provide enough coal and gas for each power plant.

He told ministries, sectors and localities to promote programmes to save electricity and use modern technology with low electricity consumption, while also developing a competitive electricity wholesale market.

The Prime Minister requested the State Capital Management Committee and the MoIT to simplify investment procedures for power projects. — VNS
Read more at http://vietnamnews.vn/economy/522698/pm-urges-ministries-to-avoid-power-cuts.html#mc52dRsC8gumLSzZ.99

  • Coal
16 July 2019

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  • Indonesia
  • Indonesia’s president has reportedly signaled a major shift in energy policy, saying he wants to “start reducing the use of coal.”
  • Such a policy would run counter to the administration’s previously stated long-term plans of fueling the country’s growing energy demand with coal, with 39 coal-fired plants under construction and 68 more announced.
  • Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and while the main culprit is deforestation and land-use change, the energy sector is poised to overtake it.
  • Energy policy analysts have welcomed the reported change in stance from the government, noting that Indonesia has long lagged other countries in developing clean power, despite having an abundance of renewable energy sources.

JAKARTA — President Joko Widodo has reportedly expressed his intention to wean Indonesia off coal, in a move that runs counter to his own administration’s stated policy of increasing the country’s reliance on the fossil fuel.

The president made the announcement at a July 8 cabinet meeting, according to Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the minister of environment and forestry.

“[T]he president emphasized that we must develop the energy sector with a focus on renewable energy,” Siti said at a recent event in Jakarta. “Therefore, the president has explicitly asked to ‘start reducing the use of coal.’”

The reported comment comes amid a period of particularly dire air quality in the capital, Jakarta, that’s prompted a citizen lawsuit holding top officials, including the president, liable for the pollution, blamed in part on coal-fired power plants operating near the city. (The lawsuit was filed July 4, four days before the president made his remark; it’s not clear whether the latter was prompted by the former.)

If the administration follows through on the statement with concrete policies to phase out coal use, this could signal the beginning of a transition to renewable energy for Indonesia, the largest energy consumer in South East Asia and one of the biggest consumers of coal in the world, analysts say.

“When I heard about it, I was ecstatic, surprised and filled with hope,” Alin Halimatussadiah, head of the Institute for Economic and Social Research at the state-run University of Indonesia, told Mongabay.

Adhityani Putri, executive director of Yayasan Indonesia Cerah, a local policy and communications nonprofit that advocates for clean energy transition, also welcomed the news.

“This statement represents a significant step forward and one that will put Indonesia in step with the major economies of the world,” she told Mongabay.

Both Alin and Adhityani said a policy shift on coal was long overdue, given that the fossil fuel has for years been falling out of favor by other major economies in favor of increasingly cost-competitive renewable energy.

“We’re left behind as many other countries have committed to phase out coal, while we haven’t said anything about that,” Alin said. “This is the first step, and with the president saying that, that’s a good thing.”

But any meaningful change will have to start with an overhaul of the electricity procurement plan, or RUPTL, by the state-owned utility, PLN. At present, the RUPTL calls for increasing the absolute figure for renewable power generation over the long term, but shrinking its share of the overall energy mix in favor of more coal-fired electricity.

“In the RUPTL document, coal is still dominant, so we haven’t seen [any plan to phase out coal] in any planning document,” Alin said.

Adhityani said the government would need “a comprehensive and just coal phase-out plan that ensures a just transition for all and accelerated deployment of renewables” in the next mid-term national development plan.

The ideal plan would have to offer both fiscal and non-fiscal incentives that would lower the price of renewable power to make it competitive with coal, said Elrika Hamdi, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

“What’s also important is that the policies taken should be consistent and in effect for a long time in order to give assurance to investors and funders,” she added.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo speaks to the press accompanied by Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar on his left in April. Photo courtesy of the Indonesian government.

Emissions reduction goal

With President Widodo recently winning an election that keeps him in office through 2024, an easing of Indonesia’s reliance on coal will help with the country’s carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals, said Siti, the environment minister.

“I welcome that statement with joy because this truly empowers our work,” she said.

Indonesia is currently one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters, most of it from deforestation and land-use change. However, emissions from the energy sector are poised to dominate in the near future as Indonesia’s demand for electricity continues to rise.

The country’s energy consumption growth is among the fastest in the world, with coal accounting for nearly 60 percent of the energy mix in 2018. Its energy policy therefore has important implications not just for the country’s climate future, but also for global efforts to achieve cuts under the Paris Agreement.

Under current plans, the committed emissions from coal-fired power plants would peak only around 2035, with an eventual phase-out only by 2069; to have a shot at meeting the Paris goals, meanwhile, the Southeast Asian region will need to phase out coal by 2040, analysts agree.

Falling short of the Paris Agreement commitments would be especially disastrous for tropical countries like Indonesia. A new study by the research group Crowther Lab finds that cities in the tropics are likely to see the strongest impacts from climate change, even as they experience smaller changes in average temperature.

The study, looking at 520 major cities worldwide, finds that Jakarta will be among those facing “unprecedented” climate shifts by 2050, including changes in rainfall patterns that will lead to more severe flooding and droughts. It also predicts a mean annual temperature rise by then of 1.7 degrees Celsius (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit), with a rise in maximum temperatures of 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Switching more of Indonesia’s power generation from coal to renewable energy sources could be key to achieving the country’s emissions reduction goals, said Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, the environment ministry’s climate change chief.

Indonesia has set itself the target of cutting its emissions by 29 percent from the business-as-usual scenario by 2030, or 41 percent with international assistance.

Ruandha said there was more room for emissions cuts in the energy sector than in the land-use and forestry sectors. Under the current target, emissions in the latter sectors needs to go down by 70 percent, including through scaling back deforestation rate and boosting reforestation; the energy sector, meanwhile, only needs to achieve a 19 percent emissions reduction.

“It’s very clear that the energy sector could be much more ambitious [in reducing emissions],” Ruandha said. “That’s in line with what the president is saying that we need to phase out coal. And this is supported by the energy and mineral resources minister, who will change our energy pattern.”

Ruandha has been tasked by Siti with studying the possibility of Indonesia setting an even more ambitious emissions cut goal of 45 percent to help rein in global heating.

“In recent events, including the G20 meeting, actually there’s a hope for each countries to set a target up to 45 percent,” the minister said. “I’ve asked the director-general [of climate change] to do some calculations, even though for us to meet the 41 percent target is already tough.”

Siti added that she’d begun discussions with the energy minister, Ignasius Jonan, on steps to cut back on coal use and advance renewable energy during last month’s G20 summit in Japan.

A coal barge in the Samarinda River estuary. The coal produced in the region is used in power plants or sold for export. Photo by Tommy Apriando/Mongabay-Indonesia.

More coal-fired plants

That a transition away from coal is even being discussed at the highest levels of government marks a major change in tone from longstanding energy policies that have relied on an abundance of cheap and available coal. In fact, Indonesia’s coal reserves have made it one of the world’s biggest exporters of the commodity over the course of the last 15 years.

Policies by successive governments have helped; coal-fired power plants receive hefty subsidies, and there are no carbon disincentives to encourage investment in renewable energy. The reliance on coal hasn’t shown any sign of easing in recent years. Thirty-nine coal-fired power plants are under construction, and 68 have been announced, which will maintain coal’s dominance of the energy mix at nearly 55 percent by 2025. Three of the six new plants expected to go online this year will be fired by coal; the other three are small-capacity facilities powered by gas, hydro and solar, respectively.

Over the 40 to 50 years that each plant will be in operation, it will have a devastating impact on local populations and ecosystems, activists say, polluting the air and water, and churning huge volumes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

“Promising to burn massive quantities of low quality Indonesian coal may have kept some voters warm, but Indonesians will be paying a very high price for their love affair with coal,” says a report by the IEEFA. “And the younger generation will be stuck with limited options to fix a rigid system.”

This heavy reliance on coal comes at the cost of growing Indonesia’s renewable energy sector, with its adoption trailing far behind most countries and short of the country’s true potential, according to a new report by the management consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

The government expects to generate 23 percent of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2025. To date, however, renewables account for just 12 percent of the total energy mix. That proportion isn’t expected to increase by 2025.

“While many countries are taking rapid strides to adopt renewable energy for power generation, the progress in Indonesia has been rather slow,” said Alessandro Gazzini, a partner at A.T. Kearney and co-author of the report. “However, the country has significant potential in renewables, including in solar and wind, and hence the stage is set for the country to leapfrog over the next few years if the policy is given a hard look.”

Locals who are affected by coal power plants around Indonesia gather during a protest in front of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources office in Jakarta, Indonesia. They’re demanding the government to switch from coal to renewable energy. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

Growing public awareness

Public awareness has been growing recently about the negative impacts of the coal industry, especially during the presidential election campaign that ended in April. At various points in the campaign, Widodo and his rival, Prabowo Subianto, came under scrutiny for their lack of commitment to new, greener energy technologies. The business ties between the candidates, their political allies and the coal industry were also highlighted in a documentary called “Sexy Killers.”

The documentary, viewed more than 24 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded days before the April 17 election, also highlighted the devastating impact of coal mines and power plants to local communities, including lush forests being razed in the search for more coal, and coral reefs being wrecked by coal barges.

Residents living near the massive power plants in Java and Bali also pay a price. The film shows many of them being evicted to make room for the plants, while those who refuse to leave have to deal with the constant pollution.

The film drew the ire of local officials, who scrambled to shut down public screenings and even accused the filmmakers of spreading “hate speech” against both candidates.

Alin said it was possible Widodo had had a change of heart after the recent intense public spotlight on the coal industry, as well as the shifting global trend to renewables.

“We may never know what’s inside the head of the government, but if we see recent events where the public responded to various information circulating [about the impact of the coal industry] through social media, it’s possible that the government is reacting to that,” she said. “Or the government might also be reacting to global pressure.”

 

Banner image: A group of locals affected by coal-fired power plants around Indonesia stages a protest in front of the headquarters of President Joko Widodo’s campaign team in Jakarta. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.

  • Bioenergy
16 July 2019

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  • Indonesia

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo has urged cities across the country to set up waste-to-energy plants this year to tackle the country’s growing mountain of trash, according to a statement published on the cabinet secretary’s website on Tuesday.

Indonesia’s incumbent president Joko Widodo, who was re-elected on April’s election gestures as he delivers a speech to highlight his vision for the next five years in Bogor, West Java province, Indonesia, July 14, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan

The world’s fourth-most populous country with 260 million people generates huge amounts of garbage and, according to a 2015 study published in Science journal, was the world’s second-biggest contributor of plastic pollutants in the oceans.

In the same statement, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said cities including Jakarta, Surabaya, Bekasi and Solo had pledged to build such plants, which incinerate trash to drive turbines to create power.

“This is not about the electricity, this is about taking care of the trash,” Widodo said on the cabinet secretary’s website, where he also questioned why there had not been more progress.

The president issued a regulation in April last year pushing regions to set up eco-friendly plants to turn waste into electricity.

According to a February energy ministry statement, 12 waste-to-energy power plants were due to be operating by 2022 and combined should create up to 234 megawatts of electricity using 16,000 tons of waste a day.

Indonesia’s archipelago of more than 17,000 islands has struggled to cope with waste, with much of it going into landfill and often eventually seeping out to pollute rivers and oceans.

Indonesia has also become the latest Southeast Asian country to send back trash amid a spike in imports from Western countries after China banned imports, disrupting the global flow of millions of tonnes of waste each year.

As part of efforts to reduce pollution, Indonesia has also sought to put a levy on plastic bags but this has been delayed by parliament after complaints from industry.

Anung, the cabinet secretary, said on the website that Bekasi, a satellite city of more than two million people near Jakarta, generated 1,700 tonnes of waste a day.

  • Renewables
16 July 2019

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  • Indonesia

Indonesia will require nothing less than a policy overhaul—starting with its state-owned power utility—to meet the target of having 23 per cent of its electricity generated from hydro, solar and other renewable sources in 2025, according to a new report released last week.

Unless Southeast Asia’s largest economy “radically changes” its roll-out of renewable energy, clean sources will only make up 12 per cent of the energy mix in 2025, said management consulting firm AT Kearney in its report titled Indonesia’s Energy Transition: A Case for Action. This means it would only achieve about half its target.

There are four main barriers to renewable energy growth, but at the heart of the issue is that no single agency in Indonesia is accountable for the development of renewable energy, stated the report, done in partnership with the Employers’ Association of Indonesia, or Asosiasi Pengusaha Indonesia (APINDO), which has over 14,000 corporate members across the country.

The government should make state-owned power utility PLN, or Perusahaan Listrik Negara, accountable for the deployment of renewable energy, argued the authors.

We believe that with a new government in place, Indonesia is now well-positioned to drive a targeted initiative to take a fresh look at how it can accelerate the adoption of renewable energy for electricity generation, especially through the lens of new policies.

Alessandro Gazzini, partner, AT Kearney

Conflict of interest

As it stands, PLN may not be fully incentivised to boost the growth of renewables, the authors said. It has a monopoly on electricity distribution in the country and is also the largest owner of fossil fuel generation assets.

“Historically, there have been many cases where PLN has not signed a power purchase agreement with renewable energy developers, even with feed-in tariff schemes,” noted the authors. A feed-in tariff is a fixed amount paid to renewable energy producers for the power they export to the grid.

Purchasing more renewable energy might require more subsidies, at least until scale is reached and lessons learnt, which would weaken PLN’s financial position, noted the report.

And with PLN owning and operating more than half of the coal power plants in Indonesia, rapid renewable energy growth could pose a direct risk to these assets. Coal makes up 51 per cent of Indonesia’s energy mix.

Small renewable energy projects with variable output may also expose PLN’s grids to stability issues.

The authors—AT Kearney partners Sandeep Biswas and Alessandro Gazzini, as well as its principal Sayak Datta—called for the government to provide PLN with the tools and incentives to boost renewable energy.

For instance, it should agree on and approve subsidy amounts to PLN for renewable energy growth.

Redirecting subsidies

Some unfavourable policies and regulatory uncertainty are also hindering the growth of hydro, solar, wind and geothermal power, with installed capacity a mere fraction of the total potential estimated by the government.

In 2017, the installed capacity of solar was 0.01 per cent of the estimated potential while hydro was at 7 per cent, the report noted. That same year, the country invested US$1 billion in renewables, a fraction of the US$62 billion that AT Kearney estimated is needed annually between 2018 and 2025.

Indonesia power generation 2017.

Eco-Business graphic: Power generation in Indonesia by sector (TWh) in 2017. Source: Climatescope

Coal mining groups in Indonesia receive sizeable government support in the form of loan guarantees, tax exemptions and other fiscal support, said the report. In 2015, Indonesia’s post-tax energy subsidies amounted to US$97 billion, according to a recent International Monetary Fund working paper, which noted that China, the United States and Russia were among the top subsidisers of fossil fuels.

This may have been appropriate years ago when Indonesia was trying to supply electricity to many more citizens, but the government should now direct more subsidies towards renewable energy to achieve long-term economic and climate goals, said Gazzini.

Policies such as the cap on feed-in tariffs for wind and solar mean that renewables essentially compete directly with coal, rendering many clean energy projects economically unfeasible. In contrast, Southeast Asian neighbour Vietnam has stipulated feed-in tariffs for solar and wind that are higher than the tariff for power generated from conventional sources.

Renewable energy developers in Indonesia also struggle with the lack of private financing, according to the report. To tackle this, the government could expand the use of guarantees for renewable energy projects and increase the awareness of local commercial banks of renewable energy technologies.

And while Indonesia’s geography—an archipelago of 17,000 islands with an estimated 45 per cent of the population living in rural areas—poses a challenge to design and operate electricity networks, the government can provide PLN with the budget to build distribution networks in remote locations for off-grid projects. Off-grid projects are standalone power systems that operate independently of the national electricity grid.

Generating more electricity from renewables would not only enable Indonesia to reach its energy targets and combat climate change, but also enhance the country’s fiscal stability as it would make gas and coal available for export, improving Indonesia’s trade balance and strengthening the performance of the Indonesian rupiah.

‘Take a fresh look at policies’

Adoption of renewables in Indonesia has lagged strides made by other countries, said Jakarta-based Gazzini.

President Joko Widodo was re-elected this year for a second five-year term, and Gazzini said: “We believe that with a new government in place, Indonesia is now well-positioned to drive a targeted initiative to take a fresh look at how it can accelerate the adoption of renewable energy for electricity generation, especially through the lens of new policies.”

Indonesia should transition to renewable energy because it is the wise thing to do.

Marcel Silvius, country representative for Indonesia, Global Green Growth Institute

The Indonesian government issued a report earlier this year that showed business-as-usual practices would lead to stagnation of its economic growth in the longer term, noted Marcel Silvius of the Global Green Growth Institute, an inter-governmental organisation headquartered in Seoul. In the Low Carbon Development Initiative report, the government said that less carbon-intensive, more efficient energy systems can deliver an average of 6 per cent gross domestic product growth per year until 2045, with gains in employment, income growth and poverty reduction.

“Indonesia should transition to renewable energy because it is the wise thing to do,” said Silvius, the institute’s Indonesia representative. “Renewable energy has also many benefits for public health and offers more inclusive development options.”

  • Electricity/Power Grid
16 July 2019

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  • Cambodia

Cambodia has officially signed an agreement to buy a power generator from Finland, according to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s official Facebook page.

The Cambodian government approved the purchase of the 200MW power generator from Finland for $175 million, with it set to further bolster Phnom Penh’s power supply.

Cambodia last month also agreed in principle to purchase a 200MW generator from Germany for $180 million.

The deal was signed in a meeting with Finnish Minister for Development, Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari on Wednesday, following the World Trade Organisation’s annual review meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

Both generators will be installed at a new $380 million oil and liquefied natural gas power plant in Koh Reah commune in Kandal province’s Lvea Em district.

Deal with Chinese companies

Cambodia’s state-run electricity supplier Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) signed an agreement with two Chinese companies last month to build the new facility.

CGGC-Un Power will build the 200MW Finnish Wartsila power plant, with China National Heavy Machinery Corporation installing machinery licensed by Germany’s MAN Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG.

The entire project will cost $380 million, with $300 million funded by the government and the rest from EdC.

Some $355 million will be allocated to the plant’s construction and $25 million to other infrastructure, EdC said.

Also during the meeting, Hun Sen asked Finland to buy Cambodian milled rice after the EU’s decision to impose tariffs on it, informing the Finnish minister that he felt the measure was unjust.

The EU in January decided to impose tariffs on the Kingdom’s rice imports due to their supposed impact on its member states’ rice farmers, following complaints from Italy and Spain.

Hun Sen also invited the Finnish minister to visit Cambodia to explore potential investments.

  • Renewables
15 July 2019

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  • Malaysia

The Merchang plant is expected to provide about 94,000 MWh of electricity per year. It began to generate revenues on 31st May and will displace about 70,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year, providing more than 31,000 households with clean renewable electricity. The partnership oversaw the establishment of three solar plants totalling 197 MW with a total investment of about MYR 1,235 million ($93 million).

Scatec Solar entered the Malaysian large-scale solar energy market in December 2016, by joining with the local ITRAMAS-led consortium that had signed three 21-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with the country’s largest electricity utility, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB).

“We are pleased to have reached another important milestone together with our partners in Malaysia” said Raymond Carlsen, CEO of Scatec Solar. “This also marks the completion of Scatec Solar’s first large scale solar project in South East Asia, a market where we are working on several interesting opportunities”.

With grid connection of this power plant, Scatec Solar currently has plants with a total capacity of 911 MW in operation and another 993 MW under construction.

  • Others
15 July 2019

 – 

  • Malaysia

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia has the right to reclaim money from China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Ltd (CPP), as the company was paid more than the work completed for two pipeline projects, says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The Prime Minister said the RM1bil that was seized from the company was because it had not carried out work as per payment.

“The company had been paid 80% of the project cost, whereas work completed was only 13%.

“Since the projects were cancelled, we have the right to get back money for parts that were not implemented,” said Dr Mahathir after chairing a Bersatu supreme council meeting on Monday (June 15).

Last Saturday (July 13), it was reported that the authorities seized more than RM1bil (US$243.25mil) from a HSBC bank account belonging to CPP.

The seizure came nearly a year after authorities suspended two pipeline projects, valued at US$2.3bil (RM9.45bil), for which CPP was the lead contractor.

Singapore’s Straits Times, in quoting sources, said that the Pakatan Harapan government had ordered HSBC to transfer the funds held in CPP’s account to Suria Strategic Energy Resources, which is wholly owned by the Finance Ministry.

CPP said it was perplexed by the unilateral transfer of funds out of its account without notification, while HSBC had declined to comment on the matter, citing client confidentiality.

Earlier, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the ministry did not issue any instructions to seize more than RM1bil in funds from CPP.

“I would just like to say that neither the Finance Ministry nor I issued any instructions for the seizure.

“So, if there are any instructions of seizure, you should refer to the enforcement agencies. That’s all I want to say,” said the Finance Minister, without elaborating further.

Lim was speaking to reporters at the Parliament lobby on Monday.

In 2016, CPP won a contract from the government of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to build a petroleum pipeline stretching 600km along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and a 662km gas pipeline in Sabah.

But the projects were suspended last July by Dr Mahathir. The Prime Minister had vowed to renegotiate or cancel what he calls “unfair” Chinese projects authorised by Najib, according to Reuters.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/07/15/dr-m-malaysia-has-the-right-to-reclaim-money-from-cpp/#cD2EDTdftH7bPogk.99

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