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Another way of saying general election is coming soon.

Government servant after getting 5 days week with the usual incompetency level being maintained, is getting pay rise.

The education standard is getting lower, payrise again for the school head for bad job done.

For a RM24Billion pipeline, how much will it benefits the rakyat? Who will benefit from it?

The country is spending too much money!!

think 24b for a mere 300km pipeline is too f***ing expensive.
sorry Jeff of being vulgar

it translate to 80m per km or RM80,000 per meter!

Please do not waste our money mr Badawi!!!

regardless how high tech it would be (but how high tech could it actually be transporting crude oil!)
RM80,000 a metre is too expensive.
Go for a merit based tender and am sure it would be only 10% the cost and still the contractor be laughing all the way to the bank!

The white elephant bridge to Pulau Bunting from Sg Limau (build at the cost of xx million) should get some use....
First it was steel, than coal, now oil.
Just let them admit it was a giant blunder to build the stupid bridge to nowhere!

pay rise ek..now let see if any increase in price coming on the way..
hmm..i think GE is coming

Have you all seen the six million dollar man??? Now we have the BolehLand version of the Billion Dollar Man.... which only benefits the few elite only especially the one from fourth floor...

I thought I read somewhere that our oil is running dry not too long from now?
If so, does it have what it takes to justify such expensive pipe?

Jeff- you forgot his other 'feel good' pronouncement... "All the over 55year olds will now have more take home pay." Actually what he did say was that he agreed with the EPF's decision to cut the EPF contributions both by employers and employees. I can't see how he can possibly think this is a good thing. On one hand, they say that those who take their money from EPF go through it within 3 years, and on the other that we (on average) live somewhat longer than those three years. Given that most EPF members have only a smallish sum there, how on earth can he say this is a good thing? No-one these days can afford to retire at 55, and if you've worked hard all your life and are finally in a position where you are at last earning some reasonable money, you may be able to put that amount away without having to worry. If you insist, and can persuade your employer to still give you the same total yearly amount(yeah.... right....!!!) you will have to pay more tax on it.
If they insist on pushing it through, at least let us have the option of continuing with the arrangements we currently have if we choose to do so.

When the oil runs out, our country will be history. Then some cronies will come along and get a contract to dismantle the pipelines and charge the government RM 1 Billion to do so.

Does anyone here have any basis whatsoever to give an estimation of how much a pipeline of that length and going through that kind of terrain is going to cost? Is anyone here even aware of the complexities of pipeline design, construction and maintenance? Please, get some facts first before you even suggest that the costs would be as low as 10% of the stated price.

Just wonder how they do the numbers?? At $80k per meter must be gold coated.

Do they know that at $24 billion, the depreciation is $1.2 billion a year if the oil runs out in 20 years excluding finance cost and maintenence...

Have they consider how much oil the need to use(charge) the pipeline before can breakeven?

Just come out with billion dollar projects without using the brain? Perhaps only use the OXBRAIN....... only????

RM80,000 for a metre of pipe? I wonder if the pipe is gold plated or diamond studded. I think 80,000 is too much.

In comparison, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completed 30yrs ago, cost USD8bil.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System)

The quoted price of USD7bil, for our pipeline does it include operations, maintenance (for how long) and the terminals at Yan and Bachok ?

Can large tankers berth at Yan and Bachok ?

If not, then the overall cost is definitely going to be much higher.

Lets get some perspective here. Pipeline construction is not a straightforward exercise, and requires much design, engineering and other supporting works.

A comparison with the TAPS on price along would be misleading, because apart from inflation and the price of material being higher now, there are other considerations such as

1. Terrain, the pipeline will travel over undulating terrain, sometimes in the middle of nowehere and there will be both slopes and valleys to travel through, which makes it difficult to lay. Granted, the temeperature here is not as hostile as that of those in Alaska, but the terrain will play a bigger role.

The terrain will also greatly affect costs of transporting material to the pipelaying location, as well as the issue of lodging and providing food for the people who will do the construction.

Even before the pipeline is constructed, the terrain will be a significant cost because the desing people will have to route the pipe on the route with least risk and exposure to public. There will be a lot of soil sampling, a lot of rerouting and design work before the pipeline is even put on the drawing board.

2. Current standards for pipeline construction is more stringent than those from the 60s. There must have been at least 10 revisions since then and most likely more, requiring more stringent QC than those days, which will translate to costs.

3. Establishing the infrasrtucture to operate the pipeline. Long pipelines will require pumphouses, control centers, sensors, carhodic protection and the establishment of ROWs, which will cost money.

And I'm pretty sure that the cost stated does not include the costs of maintenance and operation. It rarely is. The amount of inspection and monitoring work for a pipeline such as this will cost quite a bit of money.

At the end of the day, theres no cheaper way to transport oil and liquids than using a pipeline. One reason why Projet decided to leave Malaysia was because their tranportation costs were too high, having no access no access the MPP (correct me if I'm wrong, this is mostly rumours in the industry).

Another thing that you guys should understand and is a popular misconcenption amongst the public. The O&G sector is probably the most competitive in Malaysia, and while there is a definite strong Bumi representative, a lot of services are conducted with or by non-bumi companies. There is so much competition that rarely, in construction at least, do profit margings go beyond 15%.

And contrary to popular belief, an O&G project is never done on a whim, and theres a lot of studies been conducted before being given the go ahead. Whether its with Petronas or foreing players, CAPEX is never taken lightly. Why? Because all of this requires vast amounts of money, and theres so much things requiring attention, there is never enough money.

Lets get some perspective here. Pipeline construction is not a straightforward exercise, and requires much design, engineering and other supporting works.

A comparison with the TAPS on price along would be misleading, because apart from inflation and the price of material being higher now, there are other considerations such as

1. Terrain, the pipeline will travel over undulating terrain, sometimes in the middle of nowehere and there will be both slopes and valleys to travel through, which makes it difficult to lay. Granted, the temeperature here is not as hostile as that of those in Alaska, but the terrain will play a bigger role.

The terrain will also greatly affect costs of transporting material to the pipelaying location, as well as the issue of lodging and providing food for the people who will do the construction.

Even before the pipeline is constructed, the terrain will be a significant cost because the desing people will have to route the pipe on the route with least risk and exposure to public. There will be a lot of soil sampling, a lot of rerouting and design work before the pipeline is even put on the drawing board.

2. Current standards for pipeline construction is more stringent than those from the 60s. There must have been at least 10 revisions since then and most likely more, requiring more stringent QC than those days, which will translate to costs.

3. Establishing the infrasrtucture to operate the pipeline. Long pipelines will require pumphouses, control centers, sensors, carhodic protection and the establishment of ROWs, which will cost money.

And I'm pretty sure that the cost stated does not include the costs of maintenance and operation. It rarely is. The amount of inspection and monitoring work for a pipeline such as this will cost quite a bit of money.

At the end of the day, theres no cheaper way to transport oil and liquids than using a pipeline. One reason why Projet decided to leave Malaysia was because their tranportation costs were too high, having no access no access the MPP (correct me if I'm wrong, this is mostly rumours in the industry).

Another thing that you guys should understand and is a popular misconcenption amongst the public. The O&G sector is probably the most competitive in Malaysia, and while there is a definite strong Bumi representative, a lot of services are conducted with or by non-bumi companies. There is so much competition that rarely, in construction at least, do profit margings go beyond 15%.

And contrary to popular belief, an O&G project is never done on a whim, and theres a lot of studies been conducted before being given the go ahead. Whether its with Petronas or foreing players, CAPEX is never taken lightly. Why? Because all of this requires vast amounts of money, and theres so much things requiring attention, there is never enough money.

Other comparisons :

1. ESPO pipeline (estimated completion 2008)
4130 km - Cost USD16bil

2. Atasu(Kazakhstan)-Alataw Pass(Xinjiang) pipeline(completed Dec 2005)
972 km – Cost USD700 MILLION

3. BTC pipeline (completed May 2005)
1776 km - Cost USD3.6bil
(This pipeline crosses several mountain ranges at altitudes of up to 2,830 m (9,300 ft). It also has to traverse 3,000 roads, railways and utility lines, both overground and underground, as well as 1,500 watercourses of up to 500 m wide (in the case of the Ceyhan River in Turkey).

All these pipelines are to facilitate the transport of oil from the oilfields to ports at convenient locations for onward transportation by ships.