Energy security in the Asia-Pacific region

The Asia Pacific region is undergoing fundamental changes affecting both the oil and gas sectors: Demand growth from China dominates the regional growth and is now affecting global oil prices. Meanwhile the region is experiencing positive refining margins despite a fundamental capacity surplus, giving false signals to the refining sector and encouraging additional unneeded investments. The region has limited commercial or strategic storage and there are prospects now for the first time to encourage Middle East investments or commitment to usage for commercial storage in the region-particularly Singapore. On the LNG front, Singapore now has joined a growing list of LNG consumers in examining the options for LNG imports. The LNG business is also changing rapidly with new terms and conditions, which are unheard of in the past. For Singapore there are many interesting opportunities available to both increase energy security and at the same time undertake projects, which make commercial sense in storage and LNG sectors. But there is a clear need to plan the moves carefully and shepherd the process to the successful conclusions.