Mitsui moves oil trading operations to Singapore

In a bid to cash in on growing demand in Asia, Mitsui & Co. will move its oil trading operations from Tokyo to Asia’s oil hub in Singapore. “We are expanding METS (Mitsui & Co Energy Trading Singapore Co.), which was set up last May, to more than 80 staff including about 20 Japanese employees,” said Kazuhisa Kawamura, Mitsui’s spokesman. In addition to middle distillates which it is already trading, the company will trade crude and oil products including gasoline, naphtha and fuel oil.
In 2007, after losing around US$81 million in naphtha trading, Mitsui, Japan’s second-biggest trading house, closed Mitsui Oil Asia (MOA), its Singapore unit. (July 19, 2012)