Singapore aims high as Asia's LNG trading hub

THE growing importance of adopting cleaner ways to generate electricity worldwide has brought liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the spotlight as one of the most affordable and less environmentally damaging fuels. Singapore, with its strategic location, has bold plans to grow into the preferred trading hub for LNG in Asia.

Singapore is already Asia's leading oil pricing and oil trading hub and therefore already has considerable infrastructure in place: It gathers major buyers, sellers and decision makers in the same place; it has a pool of highly skilled human capital in a multilingual environment, wide availability of financial and trading instruments, internationally recognised legal, regulatory and tax frameworks, and attractive fiscal policies and incentives.

Singapore made its first LNG imports in March 2013 and currently has three storage tanks with total throughput capacity of six million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). Further expansion began at the end of 2014, with regasification facilities to be completed by 2017 and a fourth storage tank by 2018, increasing the annual capacity to 11 Mtpa.