Kelantan eyes RM9.7 billion more from Petronas

Kelantan has made a new claim for RM9.7 billion from oil production in an area bordering Terengganu.

State Economic Planning, Finance and Welfare Committee chairman Datuk Husam Musa (picture) claimed that an oil production platform known as the Star Platform, which has been in operation since 1984, had reaped RM9.7 billion in oil royalty for the federal government.

He said the claim was based on a press statement made by former Kelantan Menteri Besar Tan Sri Mohamad Yaakob on Sept 5, 1990, that Kelantan was willing to share with Terengganu the revenue from the oil well on the border separating the two states.

“For now, we are sure only about the location of one oil production platform while we are studying two others to find out whether they too are operating at the Kelantan-Terengganu offshore border,” he told a news conference here.

“We will find a way for Petronas to reconsider the status of a number of oil wells overlapping Kelantan and Terengganu. We have officially conveyed our stand as well as our claims to Petronas, and it is up to them to decide on the amount.”

Last year, Kelantan made a claim from the federal government for RM2 billion in royalty from oil production in its waters and voiced its intention to take the matter to court.

However, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the federal government would replace the oil royalty with wang ehsan (compassionate payment) for the state, beginning this year, from oil production which he said was beyond Kelantan’s coastal waters.

Husam described the meeting between the state government and Petronas last Friday as “positive.”

He said he gathered from the meeting that Petronas had paid the federal government RM75 million in oil royalty from 2007 to 2008. For 2009, it was estimated at RM50 million, and that amount should be received by Kelantan, he said.

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