Camille Klass | Senior Editor
Newly formed state-owned central gas procurement agency Singapore GasCo, is preparing to supply the city-state’s power sector as several long-term LNG and pipeline contracts approach expiry, opening a window of opportunity for purchases from 2028.
“The Singapore market at this stage is quite well contracted into ‘26, ‘27, and then obviously in 2028 you start to see the wedge opening,” GasCo Chief Executive Alan Heng said in an interview with Kpler. “In 2028 there will be a lot of events, including the fact that some of the piped natural gas contracts expire. Now at some juncture, that wedge of supply opportunity will increase and so we aim to help fill that gap going forward.”
Established in April under the regulatory oversight of the Energy Market Authority, GasCo has a mandate to aggregate demand for the power sector, while the other licensed LNG importers—Shell, Sembcorp Fuels, and ExxonMobil continue to supply the non-power sector.
Portfolio-building and RFP plans
GasCo intends to launch a request for proposals in the first quarter of 2026 to begin assembling its LNG and gas portfolio. Initial import volumes will be modest, as existing long-term contracts already cover much of the power sector’s needs.
“It’s probably very minimal spot volumes that are required by the gencos at this stage,” Heng said. “Not a lot at this stage, but we still stay in touch with them in case their existing supply contracts are in any way affected. We are also mindful that there could be potential supply disruptions and so these may create opportunities for us to respond faster.”
The firm is targeting “two to three million tons” initially, with potential growth to roughly six million tons by around 2035–2038, depending on market growth, expiration of legacy contracts, and electricity imports.
Heng, who previously helmed Pavilion Energy as its Group Chief Executive, described the approach as building a portfolio with the initial volume spread across a few contracts “of economic size,” combining spot, short-, mid-, and long-term supply and “some kind of ramp-up outlook,” and different indexes such as Brent crude, the US Henry Hub natural gas index and the Japan-Korea Marker (JKM) for Asian LNG.
The strategy is designed to balance supply security with market conditions, while remaining agile to respond to potential disruptions.
GasCo is already in discussions with potential suppliers, screening for reliability, flexibility, ability to meet requirements, and competitive pricing; as well as potential customers, to understand their needs.
As part of these discussions, the firm has received requests for supply from industrial customers, and Heng says that serving the non-power, “unregulated” gas sector, which represents around 20–25% of Singapore’s demand, will be an extension of GasCo’s business.
“I think that in that sector, there will still be competition,” he said, meaning it is unlike the power sector. “But we will enter that sector because we have been getting requests from customers who want to be supplied.”
Ensuring competitive and stable and reliable supply are central to GasCo’s mandate, alongside supporting the energy transition. Heng also emphasized the challenge of transitioning from the previous four-importer setup, placing a strong emphasis on earning the trust of customers and valuing their needs so they are “willing buyers, rather than fear they are being coerced into a system.”
Operational scope
De-risking the portfolio is key, Heng said, noting that this will likely involve selling excess cargoes, working with suppliers to divert surplus volumes, and buying smaller cargoes to complement its supply mix. “We will be very calibrated in how we buy,” he said. “We would want to warehouse some risk, but not to the point where we have too much gas and we are struggling to deal with it.”