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Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia consisting of two noncontiguous regions separated by the South China Sea. Peninsular Malaysia borders with Thailand to the north, and East Malaysia located on the island of Borneo shares it with Brunei and Indonesia. In addition, Malaysia has maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Source: [1,2,3]

According to 2023 statistics, Malaysia, which ranks 68^th in the world in terms of the size of its territory, is home to around 34 million people. In terms of population density, the country occupies the 121^st place in the world. The length of the country’s coastline is 4,675 km (Peninsular Malaysia – 2,068 km, East Malaysia – 2,607 km). Malaysia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The national capital and the country's largest city is Kuala Lumpur and the city of Putrajaya serves as the administrative center of Malaysia. The country is divided into 13 states and one federal territory [1,2,3].

For the majority of indices the positioning of the country is higher than the world average, for seven indices Malaysia is placed among the top quarter of the world's countries included in the rating. Of the indices presented, the country has the highest values for High technology exports and Reserves (0.93), the 2021 Index of Economic Freedom (0.88), and Reserves of foreign exchange and gold (0.87). The weakest spot within Malaysian economics is the Public debt (% of GDP) (0.41), the only one indicator where the country takes up a position below the middle of the rankings.

Malaysia has distinct proven reserves of fossil fuels in the form of natural gas and crude oil. The share of natural gas is 0.58% of the world’s total, the share of oil is 0.21%. The country's coal reserves are only 0.02% of the world total [4]. The share of Malaysia's population makes up about 0.42% of the world's population. However, at the same time, gas and oil reserves in Malaysia are significantly lower than those of the world leaders. For instance, gas reserves are about 20 times less than in Qatar, while oil reserves are more than 58 times less than in Iran [4,5].
In terms of tons of oil equivalent, according to 2024 data, conventional proved reserves by fuel type were: 62.3% – natural gas, 28.5% – oil, and 9.2% – coal (Fig.5).

Table 1. Fossil energy resources of Malaysia

*share of the country’s reserves in world total is provided in brackets
**unproved technically recoverable

Hydropower prevails in terms of installed renewable energy capacities (almost 89.2%), followed by bioenergy 9.4%), and solar photovoltaics (about 1.4%). Moreover, hydropower plays a significant role in Malaysia’s power generation, contributing about 16% to all electricity produced in 2021. However, the country does not completely use its very high overall hydropower potential (414,000GWh per year [5]).
Although some areas of Malaysia, such as the west-north coast of the island of Borneo, have relatively strong winds reaching 5.0-5.5 m/s at 50 m at certain times of the year, in general the country experiences low wind speeds. Thus, wind power does not have a strong potential in terms of the development of renewable energy sources. This doesn’t apply to solar power generation, which could be much higher due to the favourable climate conditions. The highest DNI solar intensity reaches 5.2-5.3 kWh/m² per day, which is recorded in the north-eastern part of country, in Sabah state on the northern portion of Borneo.

Table 2. Renewable energy resources of Malaysia

*for the majority of the territory of the country

A rather extensive agricultural and forest area forms a decent resource base for the development of a number of bioenergy technologies, in particular, the production of biogas, bioethanol or biodiesel.

SULTAN ISMAIL PETRA. Country: MALAYSIA. Latitude: 6.17, Longitude: 102.29

Wind speed, m/s



SULTAN ISMAIL PETRA. Country: MALAYSIA. Latitude: 6.17, Longitude: 102.29

Sky cover, %


 

According to [4], in 2022 in Malaysia, the total production of primary energy was 4.185 quadrillion Btu, while consumption was at the level of 3.954 quadrillion Btu. Thus, the share of domestic consumption in primary energy production was 94.5%. This makes Malaysia a country independent of energy imports. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022, primary energy consumption in Malaysia in 2021 amounted to 4.19 exajoules and was dominated by natural gas – 35.3%, followed by oil – 34.8%, coal – 21.2%, hydroelectricity – 7.2%, and other renewables – 1.4% [5].

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Mar 2024) / www.eia.gov

Figure 2. The Production and Consumption of fossil fuels in Malaysia (left — coal, in the center — gas, right — oil)

Malaysia's natural gas production far exceeds domestic demand: in 2022, gas consumption was almost half that of its production. In contrast, the consumption of coal is about 10 times higher than its production. In the last ten years, oil production and consumption have been roughly the same, with slight fluctuations in one direction or the other. In 2022, for example, oil consumption was approximately 10% higher than oil production.

Total electricity generation in Malaysia has grown by about 69% over the past ten years and consumption is entirely met by domestic production. In 2022, approximately 81.4% of electricity was produced by thermal power plants, 16.9% – by hydroelectric power plants, and 1.7% by other renewable sources.

Malaysia’s significant fossil fuel resources are definitely reflected in the energy index chart, where the country has the best indices among those presented for the Production-consumption ratio of natural gas (0.93) and crude oil (0.86). In contrast, the weakest spot in Malaysia’s energy indicators is the Сoal production-consumption ratio (0.05), since coal demand far exceeds domestic output. Insufficient involvement of renewables in the country's energy mix has contributed to the relatively low rating in the indicator for the Electricity production from other renewable sources (0.34) and in the The Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report (0.32).

A territorial map showing distribution of the largest infrastructure projects of the fossil fuel sector in Malaysia is displayed in Figure 5. As mentioned earlier, natural gas reserves account for 62.3% of all proven reserves of fossil fuels, oil – for 28.5%, and coal – for 9.2%.
The main gas fields under development are located offshore, both in Peninsular Malaysia, and in the regions of Sabah and Sarawak. Key natural gas processing plants are concentrated in the eastern part of the Peninsular Malaysia. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, as of 2019, Malaysia is the fifth-largest exporter of LNG in the world. The giant Malaysian LNG export facility is located in the small town of Bintulu in Sarawak state, where the first commercial gas-to-liquids plant from Shell also operates.

Figure 5. Basic infrastructural facilities of the fossil fuel sector in Malaysia (click on the map to view a PDF version)

Most of the Malaysian crude oil comes from marine fields on the country's continental shelf. The map above illustrates the main offshore oil extraction fields, operating refineries and oil storages in both parts of the country. The Pengerang terminal at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia is the country’s largest commercial oil storage facility.
Coal mining is carried out mainly in Borneo Malaysia, in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Figure 6. Electricity production in Malaysia (click on the map to view a PDF version)

Electricity generation in Malaysia is to about 81% provided by fossil fuel-fired power stations, met mostly by coal and natural gas. Hydropower also plays a significant role, accounting for about 69% of Malaysia's generating capacity, with the Bakun power plant in Malaysian Borneo being the largest hydropower facility in the country with an installed capacity of 2,400 MW. As Figure 3 shows, the demand for electricity in Malaysia continues to grow year after year, and the government plans to reform the country's power sector, not least by tapping and further developing its relatively abundant hydropower resources [13].

Figure 7. Renewable energy in Malaysia (click on the map to view a PDF version)

Hydropower prevails in terms of installed renewable energy capacities (about 70%), followed by solar photovoltaics (about 20%). The share of bioenergy in 2021 was just over 10%. At the same time, the volume of electric power generation by hydroelectric power plants in 2021 was about 89.2% of the total of all renewable sources, followed by bioenergy (9.4%) and solar PV (1.4%). Solar power plants are distributed across the Peninsular Malaysia with the installed capacity between 18 and 66 MWel. Among other sectors of renewable energy, bioenergy is under active development in Malaysia, especially the production of biogas and biodiesel.
According to the National Energy Policy Plan, the Malaysian government aims to achieve carbon neutrality and 70% renewable energy in the energy mix by 2050. Reaching this goal will require more than a tenfold increase in capacity from 2023 to 2050. The country has set a target of 40% renewable energy in the energy mix by 2035 [13].

The following chart shows Malaysia’s positions in terms of education and innovation:

Malaysia shows no extremes in the education and innovation sector – all indices are located in the middle or in the upper part of the chart. Among them, Malaysia's best indicators relate to the Scientific and technical journal articles (0.90), the SCImago Country Rankings (0.87), and the Number of Internet Users (0.87). Patents in force (0.66) and Government expenditure on education (0.66) are the lowest indicators in the chart, but still above the world average.

Indicators related to environmental issues are presented in the following diagram:

Malaysia belongs to the group of countries with the largest amount of carbon dioxide (0.12) and methane emissions (0.19). These facts are partly responsible for its low ranking in the National Footprint Accounts (0.32) and the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index (0.11). On the other hand, among the positive indicators is the significant area of forests in the country (0.85), as well as a positive trend to their increase (0.92). In general, the environmental situation in the country requires significant improvement.

[1] List of sovereign states and dependencies by area / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
[2] List of countries and dependencies by population density / Wikipedia / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density
[3] Malaysia / The world factbook / Library / Central Intelligence Agency / www.cia.gov
[4] Malaysia / Geography / U.S. Energy Information Administration (December, 2022) / www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis.cfm
[5] BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020 - 2022 (PDF) / BP / www.bp.com
[6] Harnessing hydropower in Malaysia/ 7 December 2020/  https://www.waterpowermagazine.com/features/featureharnessing-hydropower-in-malaysia-8396270/
[7] Potential for pumped hydro energy storage in Malaysia/ 7 Mar 2023/ https://www.partnershipsforinfrastructure.org/newsroom/potential-pumped-hydro-energy-storage-malaysia
[8] Solar resource data obtained from the Global Solar Atlas, owned by the World Bank Group and provided by Solargis / Global Solar Atlas / globalsolaratlas.info
[9] Wind Map / Global Wind Atlas 2.0, a free, web-based application developed, owned and operated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in partnership with the World Bank Group, utilizing data provided by Vortex, with funding provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). For additional information: https://globalwindatlas.info
[10] Agricultural land (% of land area) / Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[11] Forest area (% of land area) / Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site. License: CC BY-4.0 / Data / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[12] What a Waste 2.0 (PDF) / Resources / The World Bank / www.worldbank.org
[13] National Energy Policy 2022-2040 / Ministry of Economy / https://www.epu.gov.my/sites/default/files/2022-09/National%20Energy%20Policy_2022_2040.pdf

The sources of charts and curves are specified under the images.

For more information about the energy industry in Malaysia see here