Profits surged over 40% for Malaysia’s largest company last year. The state-owned gas firm capitalized on the price of crude, selling Malaysian crude oil at $68.50 per barrel during the fiscal year 2007, up 11.2% from the previous year.
The company contributes more than a third to the Malaysian government’s annual budget.
-excerpt taken from Fortune Global 500
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yeah. it is a well-known fact that our own Petronas was a Fortune 500 company, but this year marked its first top 100 standing, at no. 95. yeah, ninety-five. a freaking Malaysian company, that. you’ll get dizzy when looking at the long list of sprawling MNCs lying in the wake of proud MCOB Hassan Marican’s superbly managed team, the likes of technology giants Dell (no 106), Microsoft (no 136) and Intel (no 188), top global defense contractor United Technologies (no 123), EADS (besides defense, also parent company for Airbus – no 127) and Lockheed Martin (no 170), car manufacturers Renault (no 119), Mitsubishi (no 130) and Volvo (no 167), and other global behemoths such as Unilever, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Time Warner, BHP Billiton, Bank of China, Motorola, Coca Cola, News Corp, etc.
but you’ll get dizzier – in fact Anwar Ibrahim did mention briefly about this during the infamous ‘Debat’ – when you take a look at the list of Fortune’s Top 20 Most Profitable Companies In The World.
2008 FORTUNE GLOBAL: 20 MOST PROFITABLE COMPANIES IN THE WORLD
- ExxonMobil
- Royal Dutch Shell
- General Electric
- BP
- Gazprom
- HSBC
- Chevron
- PETRONAS
- Total
- JPMorgan
- Royal Bank 0f Scotland
- Toyota Motors
- Bank of America
- China National Petroleum Co.
- Microsoft
- ENI
- BHP Billiton
- Vodafone
- Berkshire Hathaway
- Petrobras
oh yeah. at USD 18 billion earnings, Petronas is the 8th most profitable company IN THE WORLD. NUMBER 8, for God’s sake!!!! phew, don’t you get dizzy looking at the giants in the list, and finding Petronas smacked right in the middle? we know all about the independent/international oil supermajors ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, France’s Total and Italy’s ENI, while GE needs no introduction. the world’s biggest miner Australia-based BHP Billiton was there, Europe’s biggest bank HSBC and current darling RBS were also there, so were US-based banks JPMorgan and Warren Buffett-controlled Berkshire Hathaway, both remained strong in the current US subprime crisis despite the not-so-fortunate fate of their US rivals and peers. a familiar name to Malaysians were Toyota and Microsoft, and Petronas made more profit than both of them. on queue with the current trend in the oil industry, where the power of international oil supermajors are diminishing and overtaken by up-and-coming national oil corporations (NOC), there were 4 NOCs in the list. only Russian behemoth Gazprom, who is also the largest gas producer in the world, betters Petronas in terms of profits. other NOCs who were raking in the profits are CNPC (parent company of PetroChina) and Brazilian state-owned Petrobras. (i wonder where is Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producer in the world..? or other national oil corporations – especially NIOC (Iran), PDVSA (Venezuela)?)
you can think of any company other than the top 7, and Petronas made more profit than them. name anyone you want, any global conglomerate you can think of, and Petronas made more money than them. true, our oil & gas reserves are tiny compared to Saudi, Iran or Venezuela (countries that give the cheapest fuel prices), but our national oil company made wayyyyyyyyyyy more money. so go figure. comprehend the magnitude. understand what it means.
i have commented before in someone’s blog (i think NoktahItam’s), and Mr Anwar has also stressed the same during the debate (a simple point which was not understood by Shabery)… the problem is not with Petronas. Petronas is world-class, they deserve everything they’ve achieved. it is a corporation with the sole aim of making money out of the riches from our soil. they do that magnificently… being number 8 coming from tiny Malaysia, what more can you ask for? but when they hand over the billions back to their ultimate owner, that’s where the problem lies. what this owner does with the money, is out of Petronas’ responsibilities. whether they make tall skyscrapers, F1 circuits, bailout crony companies, make more schools in rural areas, purchase private jets and new Mercedes for civil servants, subsidize fuel prices to lessen the rakyats’ burden, etc.. it is up to the owner, and not Petronas.
the most ridiculous, moronic suggestion i heard so far this year is ‘Boycott Petronas’. so you want to help filthy rich Western capitalists ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron (who owns Caltex) make even more money at the expense of our own local giant?
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tu la, fikir guna kepala lutut.
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(oh, don’t get me started on the IPPs, it’ll be another whole page)
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