Sabah BN parties echoing SAPP's call against gas pipeline to Sarawak

Putrajaya's refusal to build an oil refinery in Sabah could prove fatal to Barisan Nasional going into the next general election.

KOTA KINABALU: Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) vice president Herbert Timbun Lagadan feared that the federal government's refusal to have an oil refinery in oil-rich Sabah could prove fatal to Barisan Nasional's chances in the next general election.

In a rather surprisingly note, he said that such facility could benefit Sabahans if the Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal (SOGT) in Kimanis can have a refinery built there as well.

Herbert, one of the 'spokesmen' for BN Sabah and Sabah who made quite a number of blunders in his previous encounters against Sabah's local-based opposition party, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) including his support for the Tambatuon Dam which was strongly opposed by the local villages, has now finally come to his senses on the gas pipeline issue.

“Why can’t Sabah have its own oil refinery when Sarawak has its own?" he said after and afterthought in echoing SAPP's previous calls.

Lagadan said it would be the only way to help local companies to tap into the huge potentials the industry would create.

He said, since the federal government had always touted Sabah as a ‘fixed deposit’ state, it had a right to ask for a refinery to be set up to process oil and gas extracted from its own soil.

Lagadan said the federal government’s decision not to give Sabah its own oil refinery was seen as an attempt to sideline Sabahans and curb their particpation in the oil and gas industry.

“Frankly I cannot understand the federal government’s logic or reason as to why we must siphon gas from Sabah to Bintulu … what saving of cost are they talking about?” asked Lagadan.

Another BN partner Upko had also voiced their disappointment at the federal government’s decision to allow Petronas to build the gas pipeline to send gas to Bintulu.

Party president Bernard Dompok said the SOGT project was useless and not beneficial to Sabahans.

Opposition Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) has vehemently rejected the gas pipeiline idea calling it ‘ironic and unnecessary’.

Party president and former chief minister Yong Teck Lee said Sabah should not be sending gas to Sarawak only to buy it back for fuelling the power plants needed to address its electricity woes.

According to mysarawak blogsite, natural gas from Kimanis will be piped through a RM1.6 billion 500km pipeline to Petronas’s LNG complex in Bintulu.

The complex, with a production capacity of 25 million tonnes per annum, is one of the biggest of its kind in the world and exports LNG to three lucrative markets, namely Japan, South Korea and China.

With Sabah in need of the product to run its power plants, there were concerns that the state may have to compete with these international buyers, who are able to offer much higher prices.