Page 9 - AsianOil Week 23 2022

AsianOil SOUTHEAST ASIA AsianOil

Hibiscus stops paying Sabah state tax

PROJECTS & MALAYSIA’S Hibiscus Petroleum said this week from a lifting of crude from the Kinabalu field
COMPANIES that its Repsol Oil & Gas Malaysia subsidiary had undertaken on May 24 through the Labuan
elected to stop paying a state sales tax imposed by terminal.
the government of Sabah. Local media reported on June 10 that the
The tax relates to the sale of oil from the Kina- Sabah government said it was committed to
balu oil field under the terms of the company’s recovering the tax, having rejected Hibiscus’
production-sharing contract (PSC). Hibiscus claim that the tax was not applicable to oil sold
said it had been paying the tax “under protest” outside of the state’s territory.
since 2020 and has argued that as the point of Sabah Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri
sale for the Kinabalu oil is its Labuan crude oil Masidi Manjun was cited as saying there had
Hibiscus maintains that terminal, which is located in the federal territory been discussions on the matter between the
it is not liable for the of Labuan, it is therefore outside the sovereignty two parties but that they had now reached an
tax as the oil is sold via and jurisdiction of Sabah State. impasse.
the Labuan oil terminal, The company appealed against the impo- “The state government of Sabah reserves
which is not located in sition of the tax in September 2020 but says its rights to take any action deemed necessary
Sabah. it has received no response to date. Hibiscus within the powers, authority and jurisdiction of
said it had received legal advice on the matter the state,” he was quoted as saying.
that concluded there was no basis for the tax Hibiscus has acknowledged that its refusal to
to be imposed on crude that was sold outside pay the tax could result in the state government
the state boundaries of Sabah. The compa- of Sabah taking action against it, and that such
ny’s board of directors therefore decided to action had potential to disrupt the company’s
discontinue the payment of the tax, starting operations.™

EAST ASIA

Shell teams up with Tokyo Gas, Osaka

Gas for decarbonisation effort

ENERGY SINGAPORE-BASED Shell Eastern Petroleum “In particular, we have set a target of intro-
TRANSITION has signed two separate, non-binding memo- ducing synthetic gas equivalent to 1% [80mn
randa of understanding (MoUs) with Japanese cubic metres] of our gas sales volume as of 2030
LNG customers Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas that to bring synthetic gas into reality. In order to
are designed to investigate decarbonisation achieve this target and beyond, it is essential to
options within the broad scope of the parties’ establish a global supply chain, and we believe
respective value chains. that Shell is one of the partners for this initiative,”
The companies will explore opportunities in Tokyo Gas said in a statement.
low-carbon energy alternatives and projects that “Based on the framework of this agreement,
will move them towards their goals of reducing we will continue to develop solutions to achieve
carbon emissions significantly. Japan has set a a decarbonised society, including studying the
target to boost its use of renewables to 22-24% of possibility of a demonstration project that will
its power generation by 2030. contribute to the establishment of a synthetic gas
The companies plan to work with hydrogen, supply chain,” said Kentaro Kimoto, senior man-
carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), aging executive officer of Tokyo Gas.
biomethane and renewables-based synthetic Osaka Gas said in a statement that its collab-
gas, the last of which the three companies have oration includes an agreement with Shell and
agreed to work jointly together on to evaluate its Tokyo Gas for a tripartite joint study on meth-
potential. Shell has previously expressed its inter- anation [synthesising methane].
est in expanding production of natural gas made Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas have both set goals
from biomass. of carbon neutrality by 2050.™

Week 23 10•June•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P9