Asia/Pacific News
Brightoil Looks to China, Upstream Gas as Bunker Market is "Very Difficult"
With its bunkering and marine businesses facing a major downturn, Brightoil Petroleum Holdings [HKG:0933] (Brightoil) is looking toward China for more fuel and chemical sales and increasing its focus on upstream gas products, Reuters reports.
"China is going to open the door more for private companies," Chairman Raymond Sit said.
"They will need more energy to support China's growth."
Sit said he expects improvements in the global economy, including China, in 2013, and Brightoil is in search of "big gas blocks" to supplement two it currently owns in China.
"China is a big supermarket in the world," Sit said. "They need energy, they need crude oil."
"For our company, we must capture this opportunity."
Sit said Brightoil could reduce its sales volume in response to the slow shipping sector to minimise its credit risks, though he declined to say by how much.
"For bunkering I think it is very difficult because the shipping sector is losing money," he said.
Brightoil's profits fell 76 percent in the fiscal year that ended in June, and it announced in early November that it "has recorded a significant loss" for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 due to drops in bunker demand and the depressed shipping industry.
The company has also seen changes in its trading and bunkering business, with the exit of the division's former CEO, Quek Chin Thean, and the appointment of a number new officers.
