Petronas Business Analysis

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“The moral issues of distributive justice are unlikely to be realised if biophysical limits to

growth are ignored” - Philip A. Lawn, 2001.

Introduction

This paper evaluates the likely impact on the competitive position of PETRONAS if it were to

strengthen its business strategy based on Sustainable Development.

PETRONAS, acronym for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is a Malaysian owned oil and gas

company that was founded on 17 August 1974. Wholly owned by the Government, the

corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with

the responsibility of developing and adding value to these resources. PETRONAS is ranked

among Fortune Global 500’s largest corporations in the world. In 2007, its revenue was in

excess of US$51 billion.

Source: Wikipedia and Fortune Global 500

Since its incorporation it has grown to be an integrated international oil and gas company with

business interests in 31 countries. As of the end of March 2005, the Petronas Group

comprised 103 wholly owned subsidiaries, 19 partly-owned outfits and 57 associated

companies. Together, these companies make the Petronas Group, which is involved in various

oil and gas based activities. The Financial Times has identified PETRONAS as one of the

“new seven sisters”: the most influential and mainly state-owned national oil and gas

companies from countries outside the OECD.

Source: FT.com, 11 March 2007

The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream

exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and

distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission

pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical

manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.

PETRONAS built the Petronas Twin Towers (opened 1998), the tallest twin towers and once

the world’s tallest buildings, as its headquarters.

Source: PETRONAS

The Reality

The looming growth of globalisation and continuous development have resulted in a negative

impact on the environment, which will be detriment to the survival of mankind and other

living things on this planet if we do not take the necessary steps to reduce this impact. As for

our planet, it has all the time in the world to regenerate itself, but we don’t.

The threat to our survival has become more apparent with the increasing number of

environmental catastrophe such as earthquakes, flooding, drought, water shortage, depleting

natural resources and ultimately the increase in Greenhouse Gases fueled by rapid

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