Petronas is trying to turn a data platform into a faster deal-making tool for Malaysia’s upstream sector, with Iraya Energies tasked with building the technical and security architecture behind a new agentic AI layer for myPROdata. In Petronas’ 4 September release from Kuala Lumpur (petronas.c...
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om) and World Oil’s report the same day (
worldoil.com), the company said the push is tied to two hard commercial goals: attracting about RM50 billion to RM60 billion of upstream investment each year and cutting the journey from discovery to first hydrocarbon to 50 months from 100.
The immediate target is the way investors sift Malaysian exploration and production opportunities. The Star’s Kuala Lumpur report on 4 September (thestar.com.my) and Bernama’s local wire version published later that afternoon (bernama.com) both said the upgraded system is intended for investors and industry players seeking quicker access to the country’s exploration and production data. Petronas says myPROdata already serves as a web-based portal for subsurface and surface information on exploration blocks, discovered resource opportunities and producing fields across Malaysia, according to the company release (petronas.com) and The Edge’s market report (theedgemalaysia.com).
What changes now is the addition of software meant to connect and interrogate that information rather than simply store it. The Edge (theedgemalaysia.com) said Petronas expects the platform to help users navigate, analyse and derive insights from complex upstream data more efficiently, while Bernama (bernama.com) said the system would autonomously link geological, geophysical, engineering and other datasets. Petronas says that should allow end-to-end screening, from identifying prospective areas and assessing resources through to judging development options and commercial viability, according to the official statement (petronas.com) and a similar summary by Chemxplore posted on 3 September (chemxplore.com).
World Oil’s account (worldoil.com) added one of the more important implementation details absent from some early summaries: Iraya is not just a software supplier but the consortium lead integrator. That means it is expected to put in place the technical, commercial and security framework for the wider programme roll-out, a point also made in Chemxplore’s governance-focused summary (chemxplore.com). In other words, Petronas is outsourcing not merely an AI feature but a chunk of the operating model needed to deploy it.
Bacho Pilong, Petronas’ senior vice-president for Malaysia Petroleum Management, has framed the project as a way to let investors move with “greater speed and confidence”, according to the company statement (petronas.com). Bernama (bernama.com) and Chemxplore (chemxplore.com) both stressed the same broader message from Petronas: that better data handling and AI-supported judgement are supposed to make investment decisions faster and better informed, while helping to present Malaysia as a more competitive upstream destination. Bernama also said Petronas cast the initiative as part of MPM’s role as the “shaper, accelerator and regulator” of the country’s upstream industry (bernama.com).
The signing itself was presented as a senior-level affair. The Star’s photo caption (thestar.com.my) and the Petronas release image note (petronas.com) identified those present as Iraya chief technology officer Francois Baillard, Iraya chief executive Nina Marie Hernandez, MPM head of technology and digital Ts. Shahril Ridzauddin Mokhtar, and MPM head of technology and digital programme Arief Budiman Hermani. That line-up suggests the project is being treated as both a commercial pitch to investors and a core digital programme inside MPM.
The agreement also looks like an execution step in a bigger plan that Petronas had already outlined more than a year earlier. In a separate MPM release dated 18 June 2025 (petronas.com), the company said it had formalised MoUs at Energy Asia 2025 with Amazon Web Services, SLB, Halliburton, Microsoft, Accenture, Iraya Energies, Rystad Energy Advisory Asia Pacific and S&P Global Commodity Insights. Petronas said at the time that those partnerships were intended to elevate myPROdata for future Malaysia Bid Rounds and accelerate investor decision-making through agentic AI and high-performance computing (petronas.com). The latest Iraya agreement appears to turn part of that earlier digital agenda into a named delivery programme.
Most reports described the arrangement as agreed and under way, but one later trade item was more cautious. HMT News, in a 7 September article that carried an editorial note saying it had been prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by an editor (hmt-news.com), wrote that Petronas was “expected” to add the new capability rather than presenting the roll-out as settled fact. Even so, HMT repeated the same investment targets, the same role for Iraya as lead integrator and the same intention to help investors and industry participants assess Malaysian upstream prospects more quickly (hmt-news.com).
For Petronas, the wager is straightforward: if investors can interrogate decades of geological and engineering material faster, Malaysia may have a better chance of winning capital before competing projects elsewhere do. That does not guarantee new discoveries will reach first production in half the time, but the company is plainly arguing that a quicker, more connected view of the data is now central to how it plans to sell the country’s upstream opportunities (petronas.com).
Source: Noah Wire Services
