Cover Story: Taking Over The Reins At A Trying Time

ON the 83rd floor of the Petronas Twin Towers last week, Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz, the president and CEO of Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas), met up with The Edge for a 2½-hour interview, the longest that any CEO of the national oil company has had with us so far.

And the hours seemed to pass very quickly with humorous exchanges and banter, but with all questions answered and peppered with facts on the oil company and its direction. It was a frank and good interview.

Then again, the times they are a-changing — and for the first time since it was set up in 1974 to become the custodian of the country’s hydrocarbon resources and main regulatory body for upstream activities by concessionaires such as Shell and ExxonMobil at the time — Petronas may slip into the red. It is a situation brought about by the total collapse of the oil and gas (O&G) market and economic standstill owing to Covid-19 and impairments from the acquisition of assets a few years ago, when things were rosier and oil prices not so volatile.

And while all these challenges are looming and taking their toll on operations, there is the shareholder — the federal government — which looks to the oil company for dividends and other forms of support to help in its running of the country’s economy during the pandemic. This requires the top brass at Petronas to perform the delicate balance of meeting both the needs of the company and that of the government of day.

Quite recently as well, the O&G industry was abuzz with talk of several individuals at Petronas being investigated by the authorities for corruption — another issue Muhammad Taufik has to grapple with, as there is no longer this perception that the national oil company has high standards of integrity.

At 46, Muhammad Taufik may seem young, but his demeanour, how he handles himself, his stature, confidence and capability — how he explained the numbers at Petronas — were impressive, to say the least. And with age on his side, he could be at the helm of the national oil company for the foreseeable future, setting the direction for Petronas’ next phase of development, including diversifying into renewable energy and speciality plastics.

A Petronas scholar, Muhammad Taufik served in the early 2000s as executive assistant to former Petronas chairman Tun Azizan Zainul Abidin — the man who, among others, crafted Petronas’ mission statement to be an organisation of high integrity and professional values. The late Azizan was also the one who kick-started Petronas’ global expansion.

Five months into the job as president and CEO, Muhammad Taufik shares his experiences, views on the industry and the difficulties encountered in a Covid-19 economy and market. Here are excerpts of the interview.