Before the First Cargo – Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin and the Making of Malaysia LNG

By Dr Shamsul Bahar Abdul Kadir

Contemporary reporting, diplomatic records and family archives reveal the work of building an international LNG enterprise, and Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin’s place within that collective achievement.

On 8 November 1978, John Moore, chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, arrived in Malaysia. His programme included an “important meeting” with Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin and senior PETRONAS officers to review the proposed US$1.2 billion liquefied natural gas plant at Bintulu, Sarawak.

The meeting, planned for the following day, never took place. Abdul Kadir died that afternoon. PETRONAS cancelled its appointments, and the visiting delegation lost the opportunity to discuss the project directly with the national oil company.

A US Embassy cable dated 13 November records both the cancellation and the business still to be settled. Chase Manhattan Bank had been selected as financial consultant. Japanese financing was under consideration, the Americans were interested in participating, and equipment bids were approaching. The delegation instead discussed the project with Bank Negara and the Economic Planning Unit. ^[1]

Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin, circa early 1978.

Courtesy of the family of Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin.

That interrupted visit offers a revealing view of Malaysia LNG’s beginnings. In late 1978, the project was already a corporate undertaking, but many of the decisions needed to turn it into a functioning export business were still taking shape. Abdul Kadir was part of that formative work. He would not live to see its first cargo.

The business behind the plant

An LNG industry depends on much more than a supply of natural gas. Offshore production must connect to pipelines, a liquefaction plant, storage tanks and a loading terminal. The gas is cooled to about minus 162 degrees Celsius so that it can be transported as a liquid. Specialised ships then carry it to customers equipped to receive it.

Each part depends on the others. A plant needs dependable gas supplies and buyers. Customers need confidence that the supplier will deliver for years. Ships require cargoes, while lenders need a commercially credible project. For Malaysia, bringing these arrangements together demanded technical knowledge, capital and the ability to work across institutions and national borders.

This was a demanding undertaking for PETRONAS, established only in 1974. Its staff had to learn quickly while negotiating with international companies that possessed far greater petroleum experience. Malaysian ownership had to be supported by Malaysian capability.

Building PETRONAS through people

Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin became PETRONAS Chairman and Chief Executive in 1976, following his retirement as Chief Secretary to the Government. His background was in law, public administration and negotiation. Those skills were relevant to a young company assembling its personnel and establishing working relationships with experienced foreign counterparts.

The biography The Power of Deeds: The Untold Story of Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin records that Tun Abdul Razak relied particularly on Abdul Kadir to help identify and recruit qualified public officers. On printed page 207, the authors connect that work to PETRONAS’s early human capital development. Their account also recognises the young professionals and other pioneers who shaped the organisation. ^[2]

Rastam Hadi, PETRONAS General Manager, provides a concrete example. The biography describes his contribution to PETRONAS’s culture of integrity and excellence, and it observes on page 212 that his selection illustrated Abdul Kadir’s “knack for choosing good people”. Identifying and supporting such officers was part of the practical work of building the company. ^[2]

Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin at the second meeting of the ASEAN Council on Petroleum, October 1976.

Courtesy of the family of Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin.

From negotiation to partnership

The production-sharing agreements of 1976 formed part of the commercial setting in which the LNG project developed. The biography records Abdul Kadir’s signing of the Shell PSC on 30 November 1976, followed by three PETRONAS–Exxon PSCs on 8 December. It also describes Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s earlier negotiating role and Raja Mohar Raja Badiozaman’s involvement in resolving the impasse. These were collective achievements. ^{[2, p. 214]}

Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin signs the PETRONAS–Shell production-sharing agreement at the PETRONAS Building, 30 November 1976. Courtesy of the family of Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin. 

The exchange of signed documents at the PETRONAS–Shell ceremony, 30 November 1976. Courtesy of the family of Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin.

Such arrangements helped establish how PETRONAS and foreign companies would work together under Malaysia’s petroleum framework. LNG required another layer of cooperation: the coordination of gas production, processing, construction, shipping and sales within a single international venture.

The Bintulu package

On 21 March 1978, Prime Minister YAB Dato’ (later Tun) Hussein Onn explained the project’s interdependence to Parliament. PETRONAS, Shell and Mitsubishi had reached agreement on the joint-venture and construction-service arrangements on 31 January, but those documents had only been initialled. Shipping negotiations with Malaysia International Shipping Corporation, or MISC, still had to be completed.

YAB Hussein described the three agreements as a “package deal”. His explanation makes clear why a settlement in one part of the project could depend on another. Transportation charges, construction responsibilities and the venture’s commercial structure had to fit together. ^[3]

The joint-venture agreement followed on 31 March 1978. Contemporary reporting describes the original ownership as PETRONAS 65%, with Shell Gas B.V. and Mitsubishi Corporation holding 17.5% each. The arrangement combined Malaysian control with international technical and commercial capabilities. Those initial shares should not be confused with later ownership structures. ^[4]

A company takes shape

Malaysia LNG Sdn Bhd, usually abbreviated to MLNG, was incorporated on 14 June 1978. The company gave the project an organisational structure through which the partners could move from negotiation towards implementation. ^{[4, 10]}

A. Kadir Jasin’s Business Times report of 2 August 1978 identifies Abdul Kadir as MLNG’s chairman and chief executive, with M. B. Hashim as managing director. It also names board members associated with PETRONAS, Shell and Mitsubishi. This is contemporary evidence of the company’s early leadership, rather than a list reconstructed from later recollection. ^[4]

A. Kadir Jasin’s contemporary report, “Work Moving Forward on Bintulu LNG Project”, Business Times, 2 August 1978, p. 1. Supplied reproduction; attributed to A. Kadir Jasin / Business Times.

The report is valuable for more than the names it records. It describes completed appraisal drilling in Central Luconia, work on the gas-gathering scheme, preliminary discussions with potential Japanese customers, preparation of plant bid documents and continuing shipping negotiations. Read together, these details show a project advancing on several fronts at once. ^[4]

A further contemporary record corroborates Abdul Kadir’s position. A 9 November 1978 telex from JGC Corporation president Yoshio Suzuki, addressed to MLNG’s M. B. Hashim, mourns the death of the recipient company’s chairman. It supports the account of his office; it does not establish every decision he made or replace the company’s formal board records. ^[7]

What Mitsubishi remembered

After Abdul Kadir’s death, his daughter Noorlina preserved telegrams, telexes, letters and newspaper material. The Noorlina Abdul Kadir Scrapbook Collection has been submitted to Arkib Negara Malaysia and is in the process of being recorded and archived.

Among the surviving records are messages from executives of Mitsubishi Corporation, one of MLNG’s original partners. Bunichiro Tanabe, signing as president, referred to the partners having “just started” towards realising their joint LNG project, and expressed regret at losing a man of leadership and integrity.

On the same sheet, Yutaka Yamamoto, general manager of Mitsubishi’s Gas Department, described Abdul Kadir as having played a “leading and indispensable role” in promoting the joint project. The words are Yamamoto’s contemporary assessment, written immediately after Abdul Kadir’s death. ^[5]

Mitsubishi telex messages dated 9 November 1978, with a PETRONAS receipt stamp of 11 November.

Bunichiro Tanabe’s message appears above Yutaka Yamamoto’s.

Noorlina Abdul Kadir Scrapbook Collection, family reference no. 132.

Courtesy of the family of Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin.

A separate message was sent by Mitsubishi managing director Hiyoshi Hama. He recalled meeting Abdul Kadir on his last visit to Japan only two months earlier and described his death as a loss to PETRONAS and the joint LNG project. This places their personal contact within the project’s critical 1978 period. ^[6]

Condolence messages are generous by nature. They cannot establish who negotiated every contract or resolved each commercial question. Their historical value lies in recording how identifiable counterparts described Abdul Kadir’s contribution at the time. In conjunction with the newspaper report and other records, they strengthen the evidence of active involvement.

Why Japan mattered

Japanese buyers were central to the project’s commercial prospects. A plant and a fleet requiring substantial capital needed customers prepared to purchase LNG over a long period. Mitsubishi’s role therefore extended beyond its minority shareholding: it connected the venture to Japanese commercial networks, while Shell brought technical experience and MISC provided the shipping dimension.

The stages of this process need to be kept distinct. Early marketing discussions and purchasing commitments preceded the arrangements under which commercial supply began. The 1978 newspaper report itself refers to preliminary discussions with potential customers. Later, Tokyo Gas described the original 20-year supply contract as running from April 1983 to March 2003. That delivery period should not be treated as the date on which all negotiations began. ^{[4, 8]}

The evidence considered here supports Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin’s involvement in the earlier corporate and relationship-building work. It does not justify assigning him personal responsibility for every term of the eventual Tokyo Electric and Tokyo Gas agreements. Nor does the arrival of commercial deliveries in 1983 mean that the foundations were laid only then.

Before the first cargo

PETRONAS dates Malaysia’s first LNG cargo to 29 January 1983, with Tenaga Satu carrying the shipment for Japan. Abdul Kadir had died more than four years earlier, less than five months after MLNG’s incorporation. He never saw Bintulu become an operating LNG export business. ^[9]

30 November 1976	PETRONAS–Shell PSC signing
31 March 1978	LNG joint-venture agreement
14 June 1978	Incorporation of Malaysia LNG Sdn Bhd
8 November 1978	Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin’s death
29 January 1983	First Malaysian LNG cargo for Japan

The scale of the industry that followed makes its uncertain beginnings easy to overlook. PETRONAS’s Activity Outlook 2026–2028 describes the Bintulu complex as a nine-train facility covering 303 hectares, with capacity of 29.3 million tonnes a year. This is stated capacity, rather than a measure of actual annual output. ^[10]

Malaysia’s LNG achievement belonged to many people and organisations: government leaders, PETRONAS officers and staff, the foreign partners, shipping specialists, financiers, engineers, contractors and subsequent generations of MLNG personnel. Their contributions turned agreements into a working industrial system.

Within that collective story, Abdul Kadir’s contribution becomes clearer when the search extends beyond the completed plant. The surviving evidence places him in the early leadership of MLNG, in PETRONAS’s recruitment and negotiating work, and in the relationships through which international partners came to know the Malaysian undertaking.

The lesson is practical. Natural resources become a dependable business through capable people, workable agreements and sustained cooperation. Remembering the work done before the first cargo gives us a fuller account of how Malaysia’s LNG industry was built.

Sources and image credits

[1] US Embassy Kuala Lumpur, “Visit of Exim Bank Chairman”, cable 1978KUALA12153, 13 November 1978, paragraphs 1–4. Reproduced in WikiLeaks PlusD; the record carries a 20 March 2014 declassification/release marking. The cable date is distinct from the visit dates, 8–10 November; accessed 11 November 2026: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978KUALA12153_d.html.

[2] Khadijah Md Khalid, Shakila Yacob and Sharifah Mariam Alhabshi, The Power of Deeds: The Untold Story of Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin (MPH Group Publishing, 2020, ISBN 978-967-415-543-8). Printed hardcopy pages: 207, recruitment; 212, Rastam Hadi and the “knack” observation; 213, appointment and earlier involvement; 214, Shell and Exxon PSCs; 217–219, talent, negotiating skills and collective contributions.

[3] Dewan Rakyat, Penyata Rasmi Parlimen, 21 March 1978, columns 43–44, Hussein Onn’s explanation of the Bintulu LNG agreements. Primary parliamentary text consulted through its online reproduction; accessed 11 November 2026: https://www.scribd.com/doc/217916279/DR-21031978.

[4] A. Kadir Jasin, “Work Moving Forward on Bintulu LNG Project”, Business Times, 2 August 1978, p. 1. Supplied reproduction; contemporary evidence for ownership, leadership and project progress.

[5] Noorlina Abdul Kadir Scrapbook Collection, Telegrams and Telexes, Vol. 2, scan p. 2; family reference no. 132. Mitsubishi messages from Bunichiro Tanabe and Yutaka Yamamoto, dated 9 November 1978; PETRONAS receipt stamp 11 November 1978.

[6] Same collection, Vol. 2, scan p. 19, lower message. Hiyoshi Hama, managing director, Mitsubishi Corporation, dated 9 November; receipt stamp 11 November 1978. This is the message recalling a meeting two months earlier.

[7] Same collection, Vol. 2, scan p. 38. Yoshio Suzuki, president, JGC Corporation, to Malaysia LNG Sdn Bhd, for M. B. Hashim, 9 November 1978. Corroborates the chairman and managing director context.

[8] Tokyo Gas and Tokyo Electric Power Company, “New LNG purchase contract signed with Malaysia LNG Sdn. Bhd.”, 17 March 2003. The outline of the existing contract gives its term as April 1983–March 2003; this is a supply period, not evidence that earlier marketing and commitments were absent; accessed 11 November 2026: https://www.tokyo-gas.co.jp/Press_e/20030317e.pdf.

[9] PETRONAS, “Building Partnerships”, FLOW, Issue 2, 2017. Records the first cargo date, 29 January 1983, and identifies Tenaga Satu in the shipment photograph. The article avoids equating this milestone with a separately established arrival date in Japan.

[10] PETRONAS Activity Outlook 2026–2028, printed p. 112, MLNG business overview: establishment on 14 June 1978; nine trains, 303 hectares and capacity of 29.3 MTPA. Modern facility figures checked for this revision on 10 November 2026.

Archival status and limits

The Noorlina Abdul Kadir Scrapbook Collection has been submitted to Arkib Negara Malaysia and is in the process of being recorded and archived. MLNG’s development was collective; the article does not credit Abdul Kadir with LNG engineering, sole authorship of policy, or completion of the 1983 sales agreement.

About the author

Dr Shamsul Bahar Abdul Kadir is a Malaysian medical doctor and public health and community medicine specialist who served in Malaysia’s Ministry of Health before moving into business, consultancy, capacity building and community development. He is the second son of the late Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin and, in collaboration with the University of Malaya, initiated the research project that resulted in the 2020 biography The Power of Deeds: The Untold Story of Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin. He continues to research and preserve documentary material relating to his father’s public service and PETRONAS years.