Morgan Stanley Hires Mitsui's Maggie Jia as First Its LNG Trader in Asia

By Dinakar Sethuraman - Oct 27, 2010 2:34 AM GMT+0100

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Morgan Stanley said it hired Maggie Jia from Mitsui & Co. as the U.S. bank’s first liquefied natural gas trader in Singapore.

Jia, who has six years’ experience in LNG, joined in September and will be the New York-based bank’s “first dedicated LNG trader in Asia,” Sebastian Howell, a Morgan Stanley spokesman in London, said yesterday. She will report to Luis Lesmes in London, head of LNG, Howell said.

Morgan Stanley joins rivals such as Citigroup Inc. in setting up a LNG trading desk in Asia to capture increasing trade in the cleaner-burning fuel from China and India, as well as Japan and South Korea, the world’s biggest LNG importers.

“It makes perfect sense to move people from Europe to Asia and we can only see this continuing,” said Tim Spragg, a recruiter at Commodity Appointments Ltd. in Singapore. Trading in LNG will increase as “the biggest liquefaction markets, including Qatar, Indonesia, and Australia, and also two of the largest regasification markets in Japan and South Korea” are in Asia, he said.

Spot and short-term imports, which include contracts of as long as four years, were equivalent to about 30 million metric tons, or about 17 percent of global LNG trade last year, according to data based on BP Plc’s annual energy review and a report by the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers.