KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Electricity (SE) has requested Petronas to postpone scheduled maintenance at the Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal (SOGT) to avoid large-scale electricity rationing affecting around 600,000 domestic users in Sabah and Labuan.
SE Chief Executive Officer Datuk Mohd Yaakob Jaafar said the planned rotation-based rationing is expected to run from this Friday until 7 August across the state and Labuan.
He explained that initial arrangements had anticipated no supply disruption, following earlier discussions with Petronas and the Energy Commission of Sabah (Ecos).
However, he said new information received on Tuesday revealed that the system could not operate on alternative fuel as expected, potentially reducing grid capacity by 195 Megawatts for seven days.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Mohd Yaakob said further talks with Petronas would be held later in the day to explore the possibility of delaying the maintenance until capacity stabilises.
He added that postponing the works would help ease the situation, as scheduled outages would otherwise affect users during peak hours from 10am to 10pm, lasting one to two hours each time.
SE will continue working closely with IPPs, Ecos and other stakeholders to monitor the situation and reduce any inconvenience to consumers, with updates available on SE’s Facebook page and app.
