Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Shamsuddin lead PETRONAS' team toward successful negotiations in Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) with major oil players in Malaysia. The first PSC was signed with Shell in 1976, two years after PETRONAS' formation in 1974.
In the early 1970s, several countries were moving from the
traditional concessions approach to PSCs, including Abu Dhabi,
Egypt and perhaps most importantly, neighbouring Indonesia.
In the formative years of PETRONAS, there was close
association between heads of PETRONAS and the Indonesian
oil company, Pertamina and it offered technical assistance
and other counsel to Kuala Lumpur.
Given these conditions and advice, PSC appeared considerably
more favourable to the Malaysian leadership than the concession
system.
As a young organisation, PETRONAS had to face tough negotiations with the major multinational oil companies, the major ones being ExxonMobil and Shell at that time. Negotiations almost broke down until the Government of Malaysia intervened. In the final analysis Malaysia and PETRONAS achieved what they have aimed for in getting the country gain ownership of the Oil and Gas industry in Malaysia.
