Sarawak Shell Berhad unveiled another milestone with the earth breaking of its new production support building in Miri today.
Datu Len Talif Salleh, assistant minister in the Chief Minister’s office (promotion of technical education) officiated the earth breaking of the proposed new building.
Len Talif applauded Shell for its skills training and other capacity development programmes. He said, “It is important that the private sector continues to invest in developing skill capacity among the local folks, to achieve our national aspirations.”
He added that the Oil, Gas and Energy (OGE) industry has been identified as one of the 12 National Key Economics Areas (NKEA) under the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).
According to Len Talif, OGE NKEA targets to achieve an annual growth of 5% between 2010 and 2020. “NKEA is expected to deliver RM131.4 billion GNI impact and consequently, create an additional 52,300 jobs within the sector” he added.
Under the ETP, the Government aspires to develop Malaysia into a leading oil and gas services hub in Asia, grow Malaysia’s role in oil storage, logistics and trading and import LNG to serve latent gas demand and attract new-gas based industries.
Speaking at the event, Chok Chee Tsong, Sarawak Shell Berhad’s general manager said the new building showcased the company’s commitment in continuing to invest in the oil and gas industry in Sarawak and in Malaysia.
He revealed, “The new building will include one of the largest upstream oil and gas laboratories in Malaysia and could possibly be the largest of such a facility in Sarawak.”
It will be built according to industry’s best practices for lab design, housing state of the art facilities, including high-tech analytical instruments and will have the capability of analyzing more than 50 analytical parameters for the purpose of sample investigation, sales product quality control, production optimization, well construction and legislative reporting.
These sophisticated facilities would enable Shell to efficiently deliver the demands of its deepwater exploration and production activities in Malaysia, and meeting the expanding analytical capability required by its existing and future projects.
The new laboratory will also provide support to the operation and projects of its partners, including Petronas Carigali and other oil and gas players.
Chok explained, “It will enable us to support local community laboratory service requests, such as testing on contaminated water source and oil spill. It also enables us to provide trainings in chemistry and chemical handling to staff and contractors.”
Chok said the project would provide more job opportunities for the local community. “There will be jobs available in the construction, landscaping, maintenance, commissioning and other areas of the project.”
Shell had also awarded the construction contract to a local Miri based contractor.
Len Talif was also taken to a visit to the Shell Asia Pacific Wells Learning Hub, the first in the region to use state-of-the-art advanced simulators.