Wednesday February 29, 2012

No decision yet on sending Lynas waste to Western Australia

KUALA LUMPUR: The Cabinet has not decided on a proposal asking Lynas Corp rare earth waste material to be sent back to Western Australia, said Green Technology, Energy and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin.

He said Western Australian Minister for Mines and Petroleum Norman Moore was entitled to his view that Australia would not accept responsibility for any waste produced by Lynas Malaysia Sdn Bhd.

“Our Cabinet has not made a decision on the matter. Wait for it to be announced,” he said after the launch of the National Energy Security Conference 2012 yesterday.

Moore told the Australian parliament that the Western Australian government does not support the import and storage of other countries’ radioactive waste.

PKR MP Fuziah Salleh had proposed that the rare earth waste material for Lynas be returned to Australia.

On the pricing mechanism for imported gas, Chin said that the ministry would present a paper to the Cabinet on the pricing and hoped that it would be approved by the end of March.

“We are working hard on it and stakeholders such as Petronas and Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) are involved in the discussions.”

He said TNB had to look for other energy sources following the gas curtailment exercise by Petronas.

In his speech, Chin said most of Malaysia’s major indigenous oil and gas fields are in advanced stages of production.

He added that their sources were depleting and production was declining at a rate of 2% per annum, resulting in Malaysia becoming increasingly dependent on imported gas to meet demand.

Chin said over 30% of piped natural gas supplied to the peninsula was imported from Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

He added that gas consumption in the peninsula had risen by 13% over the last decade and this had strained supply infrastructure causing frequent disruptions.

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