PETRONAS, short for Petroliam Nasional Bhd, is Malaysia's national petroleum corporation established on 17 August 1974. Wholly-owned by the Government, the corporation is vested with the entire oil and gas resources in Malaysia and is entrusted with the responsibility of developing and adding value to these resources. Since its incorporation PETRONAS has grown to be an integrated international oil and gas company with business interests in more than 30 countries. As at end of March 2003, the PETRONAS Group comprised 82 wholly-owned subsidiaries, 24 partly-owned outfits and 47 associated companies.

The Group is engaged in a wide spectrum of petroleum activities, including upstream exploration and production of oil and gas to downstream oil refining; marketing and distribution of petroleum products; trading; gas processing and liquefaction; gas transmission pipeline network operations; marketing of liquefied natural gas; petrochemical manufacturing and marketing; shipping; automotive engineering; and property investment.