Central & SE Asia / Australasia
Country profile: Malaysia
Location: | Southeastern Asia, peninsula bordering Thailand and northern one-third of the island of Borneo, bordering Indonesia, Brunei, and the South China Sea, south of Vietnam |
Climate: | tropical; annual southwest (April to October) and northeast (October to February) monsoons |
Terrain: | coastal plains rising to hills and mountains |
Size: | 329750 sq. km total (Land area: 328550 sq. km Water area: 1200 sq.km) |
Population: | 25,274,133 (July 2008 est.) |
Languages: | Bahasa Malaysia (official), English, Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainan, Foochow), Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Panjabi, Thai |
Government: | constitutional monarchy |
Capital city: | Kuala Lumpur |
Legal system: | based on English common law; judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court at request of supreme head of the federation; Islamic law is applied to Muslims in matters of family law and religion; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction |
Currency: | ringgit (MYR) |
Licensing: |
Country profile
During the late 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain established colonies and protectorates in the area of current Malaysia; these were occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945. In 1948, the British-ruled territories on the Malay Peninsula formed the Federation of Malaya, which became independent in 1957. Malaysia was formed in 1963 when the former British colonies of Singapore and the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the northern coast of Borneo joined the Federation.
The first several years of the country's history were marred by a Communist insurgency, Indonesian confrontation with Malaysia, Philippine claims to Sabah, and Singapore's secession from the Federation in 1965. During the 22-year term of Prime Minister MAHATHIR bin Mohamad (1981-2003), Malaysia was successful in diversifying its economy from dependence on exports of raw materials to expansion in manufacturing, services, and tourism.
Energy production and consumption
Oil | Gas | |
Production: | 751,800 bbl/day (2005 est.) | 60 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
Consumption: | 501,000 bbl/day (2005 est.) | 31 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
Exports: | 611,200 bbl/day (2004 est.) | 29 billion cu m (2004 est.) |
Imports: | 278,600 bbl/day (2004 est.) | |
Reserves: | 3 billion bbl (2007 est.) | 2 trillion cu m (1 January 2006 est.) |
Major fields: |
Malaysia - recent news
07 Jan 21 |
Malaysia: PETRONAS Carigali takes over operatorship of E11 gas hub, offshore Sarawak PETRONAS has taken over the operatorship of the E11 gas hub, located 130km offshore Bintulu, Sarawak. The E11 hub, which has been producing since 1982 under the MLNG Production Sharing Contract, had been operated by Shell for the past 38 years. |
01 Dec 20 |
Malaysia: Samsung Engineering receives USD 1.07 billion contract for the Sarawak Methanol Project in Malaysia Samsung Engineering has received an LOI for a $ 1.07 billion contract from Sarawak Petchem, building a methanol plant in Sarawak, Malaysia. |
17 Nov 20 |
Malaysia: CGG awarded large offshore Malaysia seismic reprocessing contracts by PTTEP Subsurface Imaging, part of CGG’s Geoscience division, has been awarded two large-scale complex seismic reprocessing contracts by PTTEP. |
02 Nov 20 |
Malaysia: Hibiscus Hibiscus increases production at the North Sabah PSC Hibiscus Petroleum has increased production at the North Sabah PSC through a successful infill drilling development campaign. |
26 Oct 20 |
Malaysia: PETRONAS awards multi-client programs in Sarawak Basin to seismic consortium The seismic consortium comprising PGS, TGS and WesternGeco has been awarded a multi-year contract by PETRONAS through competitive bidding to acquire and process up to 105,000 sq kms of multi-sensor multi-client 3D data in the Sarawak Basin, offshore Malaysia. |
Malaysia - more news
Other countries in this region
- Australia,
- Bangladesh,
- Brunei,
- Cambodia,
- China,
- Fiji,
- Hong Kong,
- India,
- Indonesia,
- Japan,
- Laos,
- Maldives,
- Mongolia,
- Myanmar,
- Nepal,
- New Zealand,
- North Korea,
- Pakistan,
- Palau,
- Papua New Guinea,
- Philippines,
- Singapore,
- South Korea,
- Sri Lanka,
- Taiwan,
- Thailand,
- Timor Leste,
- Vietnam