In a bid to reassert itself as a trading force in the next few years, Mitsui plans to restart oil trading in Singapore by as early as next year. After a 3 year interruption at Singapore, Mitsui is looking to expand the outfit to around 60 staff by 2012. The Japanese trading firm shuttered its Singapore trading arm Mitsui Oil Asia (MOA) in 2007 after suffering a loss of US$81 mln in naphtha trading and has since, restricted its trading activity to crude and low-sulphur waxy residue (LSWR) from its Tokyo headquarters. Mitsui is not planning to revive the MOA name but will start moving the crude and residue fuels traders within the next few months and look to moving the rest gradually. Before the scandal, Mitsui accounted for about half the naphtha trade in Singapore and also traded across the product barrel. Mitsui plans to gradually shift back some of its trading to gain direct access to other counterparties in the expanding Singapore market.
09-Mar-10 
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