Singapore has two new liquefied natural gas suppliers after the Energy Market Authority (EMA) appointed ExxonMobil LNG Asia Pacific and Sembcorp Fuels as new term LNG importers.

The EMA is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Its main goals are to ensure a reliable and secure energy supply, promote effective competition in the energy market and develop a dynamic energy sector in Singapore.

The authority licenses term LNG importers to ensure that their import and supply of regasified volumes to end-users in Singapore on contracts of one year’s duration or longer are both competitive and reliable.

The two newcomers join the duo of existing term LNG importers to Singapore – Shell and Pavilion Energy.

The EMA carried out a competitive request for proposal process to select up to two more term LNG importers, and the authority found Sembcorp and ExxonMobil’s proposals were the most competitive.

Bids were due back on 9 November and the authority stuck to its earlier decision to appoint the new suppliers by the end of March 2021.

“Natural gas is one of the four switches in Singapore’s drive towards a more reliable, affordable and cleaner energy future,” the EMA said on Thursday.

“It is the cleanest form of fossil fuel and is expected to be the dominant fuel for Singapore in the near future as we scale up our renewable energy options.”

Sembcorp, Singapore's first commercial importer of natural gas, has been building its core capabilities in gas import and retail over the past two decades.

"This appointment will enable Sembcorp to augment its offer of a diverse portfolio of energy generation sources and supplies in Singapore that now includes LNG, piped natural gas, biomass, waste, as well as solar," said parent Sembcorp Industries.

Sembcorp is Singapore's largest natural gas supplier and a leading solar energy provider.

The 2017 licences issued to Shell and Pavilion gave the companies exclusivity to market LNG for three years or up to 1 million tonnes per annum, whichever comes first.

LNG

Singapore gets two new LNG players - find out who has won term import deals