Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending the annual Platts Top 250 Awards Dinner, which ZE sponsored. This event is an occasion to celebrate the accomplishments of Asian Energy companies in various categories, and marked the mid-point of the 5th edition of Singapore International Energy Week, a week-long gathering of regional energy professionals, policy makers, academics and journalists.
I was pleased to see many clients and prospects being recognized in categories as diverse as Corporate Social Responsibility (PTT of Thailand), Outstanding performance (Gazprom), Best Integrated Company (Petrochina), Commodity Excellence (Oil: Cairn India – +120% yoy; Power: TNB from Malaysia) and Rising Star Companies (GDF Suez Singapore). Not surprisingly, three Chinese companies topped the overall Asian ranking: Petrochina, Sinopec and CNOOC.
Aside from the Asian awards and the related Platts Global Energy Awards that will take place on the 29th of November in New York, two new announcements fueled the discussions among local professionals:
1- The announced construction of a 4th storage tank by 2017 in the new Singapore LNG terminal, due to begin operations in Q2 next year. This 4th tank should double the initial planned capacity of the terminal to 9 million tonnes per year and is viewed as a sign of confidence in the future of the Asian gas market. This new terminal is one of the cornerstones of Singapore’s energy security policy as it will allow companies to diversify their gas import (today 80% of power generation is based on piped gas from Malaysia, with the remaining coming mostly from fuel oil). The terminal will also aim to position Singapore as an LNG trading hub and could have an impact on the LNG market structure (more spot liquidity, growth of the currently lackluster swap market, shorter dated contracts, new benchmarks etc..)
2- The long expected creation of an Electricity Futures Market in Singapore (though no exact timeframe is given). This could, in theory, benefit everybody: large corporate consumers would benefit by gaining the ability to hedge risk by locking in long term prices; generators would be able to fine tune their hedging programs, and retail competition will increase and become more sophisticated. The key is, of course, to ensure enough liquidity. The energy market authority is considering various market maker schemes and has initiated an industry consultation on the Development of an Electricity Futures Market in Singapore.
Both of these announcements mean there will be an increase in data and trading in the market. ZEMA, the enterprise data management solution from ZE is helping organizations across the globe to capture, centralize and analyze the data they need to perform their jobs efficiently.