It has run a representative office in Beijing since 2016; RWE S&T board member Peter Krembel said: “We would like to move deeper into China, grow our customer base, and import coal ourselves.” It comes five years after the company opened a trading office in the Indian city of Mumbai. The company also has trading offices in Jakarta and Singapore.

For the last five years, when trading with Chinese partners, RWE S&T said its transactions were only possible outside China in dollars. Now it is taking the next step by setting up a ‘wholly foreign owned enterprise' (WFOE) to enable it to import coal itself and pay in the local Chinese currency, renminbi. Business via the WFOE is expected from 4Q2018 onwards.

It is not the first European utility to develop a recent focus on Asian energy trade. German rival Uniper tells NGW it has a special focus on the Asia-Pacific region, especially for coal and LNG trading and business development, with existing offices in Singapore and Dubai; it also has offices in Kolkota (Calcutta) and Johannesburg that are more-focused on engineering project development. 

French power giant EDF arguably has the closest integration with the region's energy trade. On July 3 it and Japan's largest LNG buyer Jera signed binding agreements to form an LNG optimisation and trading joint venture; it will involve Jera and EDFT's LNG optimisation and trading activities being merged into Jera Trading (Jerat), owned 66.67% by Jera and 33.33% by EDF's wholly owned EDFT.

RWE S&T chief commercial officer Peter Krembel (left) with Beijing general manager/legal representative of the WFOE Bruce He (Credit: RWE S&T)