Speaking at a press conference in Singapore, Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican - the company's president and chief executive - said, "Malaysia has room to lift LNG capacity by 17%, but timing will depend on the development of both traditional and new markets."

"[In fact], with a little capex we could probably squeeze another four million tonnes from Bintulu but we're not going to do anything at the moment," he added. Bintulu is the world's biggest single-site production steam with an annual capacity of around 23 million tonnes.

Hassan explained that his reluctance to increase capacity was because, "a plethora of LNG projects across the globe would put pressure on LNG prices." He feels that surplus supply would cause producers to compete "fiercely" to capture any incremental demand from "traditional buyers such as Japan and South Korea" and any demand from new markets like China and the US.

However, he does acknowledge that global trade in LNG will go up. "Current global trade of about 120 million tonnes a year [is] projected to rise to 200 million by 2010 and 315 million by 2020," said Hassan.

"Most supplies would remain under long-term contracts, but spot trade would grow from about 10% today. I believe about 30% of global capacity will be spot or traded," added Hassan.