Malaysia's state-owned oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has announced that it has put its plans for a new refinery in Sudan on hold as a result of rising costs.

Speaking at a press conference at the 13th annual Asia Oil & Gas Conference, the company's chief executive officer Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican confirmed that it was following the trend set by its counterparts across the world and deferring future investment times due to the current economic climate.

"The cost environment has gone up so much. Like any other refinery projects around the world, we have to put it aside for now because of the cost of investment," he said.

Despite this, however, Mr Mohd added that Petronas is still committed to investing money into the state's oil sector, with upstream activities a particular priority.

Notably, he confirmed that the national company has now joined a number of foreign firms, including Royal-Dutch Shell and PetroChina, in looking to develop Indonesia's Natuna-D Alpha natural gas block, believed to be the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia, with 1.2 trillion cubic metres of recoverable gas reserves.