PETALING JAYA: Any potential cut in Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (PETRONAS) capital expenditure (capex) will have “less impact” on a brownfield player like Uzma Bhd
, says group chief executive officer Datuk Kamarul Redzuan Muhamed.
“We heard that there is a cut in spending by PETRONAS, which will obviously impact some industry players.
“However, Uzma’s oil and gas (O&G) activities are in the brownfield sector which focuses on operations.
“If the spending is cut on operations, oil production will be affected.
“The decision to cut back on spending will have a lot of impact on greenfield players who are building new platforms and drilling new wells.
“It will have less impact on companies conducting well services and those in the production enhancement area,” he said on the sidelines of the UzmaSAT-1 Tech Day 2024 event yesterday.
Regarded by the group as a state-of-the-art earth observation (EO) satellite, the UzmaSAT-1 programme is the result of a collaboration between Geospatial AI Sdn Bhd, Uzma’s subsidiary and Satellogic.
Initially scheduled to be launched on Oct 12 using SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral, Florida, the date has been postponed due to a recent incident involving SpaceX’s satellite.
“We are now looking at a potential launch in early or mid-November.
“This satellite is expected to be the first high-resolution EO satellite owned by a private company in South-East Asia. Malaysia launched its first EO satellite, TiungSat-1 back in 2000, followed by RazakSat about 14 years ago. Since then, the government has been relying on non-sovereign images, acquiring them from somebody else.
“With the upcoming launch, we want to make sure that we have sovereign data,” Kamarul said.
While he did not reveal the investment cost of UzmaSAT-1, he is optimistic that the company is able to recoup its investment over the satellite’s lifespan.
“The satellite’s lifespan can be between three and five years. The capex for the satellite has already been spent but we have deferred the payment over the satellite’s operational period,” he said.
Kamarul added the target market for UzmaSAT-1 includes government agencies.
“We are working with certain government agencies on proof-of-concept projects, as some of this technology is a bit nascent. The plantation sector is also one of the key target markets for us as they need to monitor large areas of land,” he said.
The UzmaSAT-1 programme will be parked under the group’s digital earth segment, which is one of the three segments in the company’s non O&G division.
“At the launch of our five-year plan, 98% of our income comes from the core business. Our target is that by the end of our five-year plan, 60% of income will be derived from the core business and 40% from the non-core segments which are digital earth, energy trading and new energy.
“As of today, our non-core businesses generate about 27% of income. If you look at all the businesses in Uzma, we invest heavily in technology and it takes some years for gestation before it starts contributing to our performance.
“The digital earth segment started about three years ago and it began to generate income for us last year. What we are hoping now is to reach the inflection point where we can see growth in this division,” Kamarul said.
Overall, Kamarul noted that FY25 is expected to be a “very good year” for Uzma.
