Hong Kong: The chairman of one of Asia’s best known names in bunkering tells Maritime CEO today of his plans to increasingly focus on upstream businesses.
Brightoil has come a long way in a short amount of time, from niche bunker activities to global oil player. The company is now one of China’s premier marine bunkering service providers, also selling overseas, as well as a developer of oil and gas fields and last but not least a significant shipowner with a fleet of VLCCs to go alongside its increasing number of bunker barges.
Brightoil chairman Dr Sit Kwong Lam says the future of the firm will increasingly lie in developing oil and gas fields.
The Dina 1 gas field in Xinjiang in northwest China has been generating remarkable cash inflow to the group, while the Tuzi gas field development plan has been approved by Beijing’s National Development and Reform Commission and is expected to be officially commissioned shortly.
“We will continue to further develop oil and gas fields to deploy our strategy with a focus on upstream business,” says Sit, adding: “The upstream sector will be the major driver for Brightoil’s future growth and value adding. Looking ahead, demand for oil and gas resources in China will remain strong and an upward adjustment of the natural gas price is expected to continue in the future.”
Even though the financial performance was severely impacted in the first half of the 2013 financial year, “we adjusted our business strategies and risk control measures according to different markets and business environments and managed to achieve significant improvement in operating results,” says Sit.
“We have every confidence that the scalable and global development of our core businesses, the upstream business in particular, will lay a solid foundation for Brightoil to become a renowned international energy conglomerate,” Sit concludes. [21/11/13]
