National oil company Petronas has dismissed calls to raise contributions to government coffers, despite posting record profits due to high oil prices, according to a weekend report.

The state-owned company posted in the year to March, amid on-going calls from opposition and rights groups for more funds to be channeled into government spending.

But Petronas president and chief executive officer Hassan Marican said the company was already distributing 76.5 percent, or RM41.7 billion of its profit before royalties and export duty, back to the government.

"What is left is the 23.5 percent that is for us to reinvest, expand and grow the business further. There is a lot of distribution of the profit. It's a very high percentage," he told the Edge financial weekly in an interview.

Petronas has been a target for criticism after the government in February introduced the country's biggest-ever fuel price hikes, saying it could no longer shield consumers from rising oil prices.

Need money for expansion

Rights groups, trade unions and opposition parties have led a series of protests in Kuala Lumpur in recent months calling for a reversal of the rises and for Petronas profits to be distributed directly to Malaysians.

But Hassan discounted the prospect of distributing more of the company's cash to the government.

"We need the cash for our capital expenditure. Next year our capex is RM27.5 billion," he said.

The chief executive said the government, as the company's sole shareholder, had the right to dip further into Petronas profits but was hopeful it would not.

"Petronas is a global company, it's rated by agencies, it has papers out there in the capital market, so you have to maintain that credibility," he said.

"You don't want to be at the same level of some of the other national oil companies where every dollar is taken out, so you stifle investments, stifle expansion plus we could lose our investment grade or ratings. This can happen," he said.

Petronas is the only Malaysian company to be listed in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest firms.