International law firm, Mayer Brown announced on Friday the appointment of energy lawyer Justin Tan, to its Corporate and Securities practice in Singapore – a key Asian hub at the centre of the practice’s ambitious Asian growth plans.
Commencing his new role from 01 April, Tan most recently served at Clyde & Co in the city-state, where he served as partner for the past seven years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
With a career focusing on the energy, infrastructure and commodities sectors, the announcement highlighted Tan’s cross-border work, representing multinational corporations, Japanese trading houses and Chinese SOEs in high profile energy and infrastructure deals.
Speaking to FinanceAsia, Tan underscored his work with a “top tier Japanese trading house on its LNG carrier pooling joint venture with one of the key fully integrated energy companies in the world” as being particularly rewarding.
As a demonstration of his interest and capabilities in cross-border advisory, he shared with FA the example of his work supporting another Japanese entity on its equity investment into a dry bulk carrier pooling joint venture in the US, that has entities across nine jurisdictions.
Speaking to FA about the impact of the Ukraine crisis on energy prices and commodity activity in Asia, Tan shared, “The crunch on the energy market and accompanying price spike is a more nuanced and complex situation than many perceive.”
“Whilst it is a challenge for individuals and businesses that consume energy, it is an opportunity for both energy producers whose products now fetch higher prices, as well as those who own assets that help produce and deliver energy, such as owners of LNG and crude tankers, as well as crude refineries and LNG liquefaction trains.”
As Asia Pacific’s market participants are primarily energy importers, Tan suggested that activity in the LNG regasification space (both onshore and floating) will continue to grow. However, he noted competition moving into the space, “The sudden huge increase in demand in Europe for LNG importation infrastructure.. means is that there will be competition for LNG expertise, assets and investment between APAC and Europe.”
With regards to current geopolitical concerns and pricing volatility he shared, “For Asia-based market participants who are consumers, being more creative with procurement of energy beyond your traditional sources is now even more important than before. For those who are producers, this is the time to ramp up production to take maximum advantage and also to seek out new markets, as there will be many who are in need.”
He also pointed to the accelerating developments in the renewable energy space as being a trend that is set to continue shaping regional activity, with the net zero movement as driving capital investment in the region.
“An increasing proportion of energy infrastructure investment is driven by financial institutions and funds that are strongly committed towards ESG. What this means is that viable renewable projects will be able to raise funds much more easily than those viewed as being more traditional and fossil fuel-centric, with perhaps the exception of LNG which is the hottest part of the energy market right now.”
He warned however, that we could be on the cusp of an impending crunch set to arise from too much demand chasing insufficient skillsets and experience in the renewables space.
“My personal view is that with the energy crunch and desire for energy independence as well as the net zero movement, nuclear power will make a comeback at some point,” he concluded.
