Riding a wave of robust market prices, Sarawak's pepper industry has continued to post financial gains as global demand for the spice continues to grow. The state dominates Malaysia's pepper sector, accounting for roughly 95% of the country's output. As a result, pepper has become a major cash crop supplementing the timber and palm oil industries. First cultivated during the 19th century, Sarawak…
Each year, more and more of the trees on Sarawak’s tropical forests and peat land are felled and cleared as companies look to feed rising global demand for both timber and the products of plantations erected in their place. Such lucrative operations have been practised for decades across Borneo, on both the Malaysian and the Indonesian sides. Yet calls are growing louder to turn the industry…
The new township of Tanjung Manis, occupying a central location within the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) and possessing a natural deep-water port, is earmarked for development as a strategic hub for the state’s timber, palm oil and halal food processing industries, as well as to become the new base for the marine engineering industry. The state-owned Sarawak Timber Industry…
According to the “Malaysia Energy Statistics Handbook 2014”, Malaysia is endowed with 98.31trn standard cu feet (scf) of proven natural gas reserves, of which Sarawak accounts for around half, with 50.12trn scf, and neighbouring Sabah with 13.21trn scf. Offshore basins in the two eastern Malaysian states have become the focal point of exploration and production in recent years, as western…
As Malaysia’s largest state, making up around 40% of the country’s total land mass, Sarawak stretches over an area of 124,449 sq km and occupies 320 km of coastline, endowing it with large plots of land that can be allocated for industrial development with import and export facilities. The Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) is one of five regional development corridors taking…
Given Sarawak’s budding power generation potential and the appeal of the cost competitiveness and sustainability of hydropower, the state government is in the midst of securing power exchange agreements with neighbouring territories. It is also looking to emulate the example of Norway, which has positioned itself as Scandinavia’s leading hydropower generator and utilises its production…
The case could be made that no other state in Malaysia is of as much current and historical importance to the country’s on and offshore hydrocarbons industry than Sarawak. The Sarawak basin is one of Malaysia’s richest geological areas for hydrocarbons development, particularly natural gas. It was here that Malaysia’s first oil well, the Canada Hill Well, an onshore field near Miri, was…
Supplying more than one-third of the world’s total crude palm oil (CPO), according to US Energy Information Administration figures, Malaysia has traditionally used only a small fraction of what is produced as a feedstock for biodiesel, opting instead to export most of its output. Slowly and surely, however, local biofuel production has been on the upswing, with domestic production growing…
At present, there are no formal mechanisms within Sarawak allowing for small industries and homes that produce renewable power for their own consumption to sell any surplus power generated to the state’s main grid. Some critics believe this counters the government’s principles of actively encouraging the adoption of green energy solutions wherever possible. SWEET DEAL: In Peninsular Malaysia,…
The Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) was largely responsible for Sarawak’s receiving the most foreign direct investment (FDI) of any of Malaysia’s states over the first nine months of 2014, valued at RM8.7bn ($2.6bn). In all, the corridor has generated a cumulative investment value of RM32.9bn ($10bn) between its launch in 2008 and the end of 2014, with RM27bn ($8.2bn) being…
