Malaysia’s Petronas CEO warns of ‘polycrisis’ engulfing energy market with Israel-Iran war
Tengku Muhammad Taufik urges region to diversify and scale up its energy portfolio, as oil prices surge amid geopolitical turmoil
War between Israel and Iran is adding to a “polycrisis” of threats to global energy security, the chief of Malaysian oil major Petronas has warned, as tariffs and geopolitical turmoil drive up prices.
Global oil prices have surged since Friday when Israel launched strikes inside Iran, which retaliated with missiles and drones and has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz – through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.
Malaysian state oil company Petronas has already reacted to the global economic gloom, slashing a tenth of its almost 50,000 workforce, saying the company will not exist in 10 years otherwise.
Speaking at a Kuala Lumpur conference on Monday, Petronas Group CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik noted that the global oil price had seen the largest price surge since 2022 in anticipation of a supply shock from the Israel-Iran war.
“These seismic shifts of global conflicts, technological revelations and climate change [are] what Petronas has described as polycrisis,” Taufik said, adding that this was exacerbated by the projected population of the Asia-Pacific region that would rise to 5.2 billion in 2050.
The region must diversify and scale up its energy portfolio, he said, stressing that energy was no longer the exclusive domain of oil and gas firms.