Argus Biomass Asia Conference

Masayoshi is the manager of Biomass Fuel Business Section at ITOCHU. ITOCHU, been in biomass business since 2014, is one of the leading distributor of biomass fuels throughout Asia. Since 2015, Masayoshi has been involved in biomass fuel sourcing business along with biomass power plant development. Prior to biomass, he was in charge of solar project development, another form of renewable energy, for more than 6 years at ITOCHU Read less

Avila is the Executive Advisor at Prima Khatulistiwa Sinergi, a fast-growing Indonesian biomass trading company established in 2019. Since joining in 2022, he has played a pivotal role in diversifying biomass products and markets for both domestic and international power plants and industrial sectors, enhancing the company's business development and strategic planning efforts. Avila has been an active participant in the biomass industry since 2017 and concurrently holds the position of Deputy Head of Local Market Development at the Indonesian Biomass Energy Society. Read less

Hong Hao is the founder and chairman of Great Resources New Energy, a company provides comprehensive solution to the need of bioenergy with business range covering biomass fuel trading, biomass boiler design and manufacture, and bioheat plant operation. Over the past 17 years, Hong has contributed significantly to the wider use of bioenergy in China by supplying carbon neutral bioheat to industrial, commercial and residential customers. His pioneering work by supplying bioheat to biopharma cluster and constructing CHP plant has helped emission reduction greatly. He also played an important role in setting biomass boiler emission standard at local and national level. Read less

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Geoffrey Seeto oversees New Forests’ forestry investment program in Southeast Asia and Africa, with 20 years’ experience in financial services, principally in private equity in the infrastructure, natural resources, and energy sectors. He is an experienced investor in the Asian region, having led, originated, and executed a wide range of transactions in various regulatory regimes. Read less

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Robert Hardin is the Chief Executive Officer of SEDC Energy Sdn Bhd. With more than 20 years’ experience in the oil & gas industry and held responsibilities with various divisions during his time with PETRONAS, he led the company since its was established in 2019. SEDC Energy Sdn Bhd is part of the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) group of companies, that plays a key part in driving the Sarawak’s hydrogen agenda, new energy, e-mobility and downstream oil & gas businesses. Read less

Loic Brachet’s extensive experience in the biofuels industry spans over 15 years and three continents. He has covered all the aspects of the industry, from operations to middle-office and risk management to trading. Constantly looking for new pockets of growth, and exploring routes less travelled, Loic has developed many new outlets in Europe and set up two businesses from scratch in Asia. He has successfully structured, negotiated, and closed business opportunities both on feedstock supply and finished product trading. Read less

Thareq is a Manager in RSPO, involved in Market Transformation strategies and planning to increase the production and uptake of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil and supporting the growth of biomass, biochemicals, bioenergy and advanced biofuels industries globally. In his past experience, he has worked with PETRONAS and multiple government agencies overseeing the biomass and waste-to-wealth policy implementation such as the National Biomass Strategy (NBS) and Biomass Industry Development Plan in 2016-2020 during his attachment with the National Innovation Agency. He was then transferred to Malaysian Investment Development Authority, involved in the strategic investment of high impact biomass and circular projects attracting sustainable high-quality investment into Malaysia. He has helped multiple industries to transition towards circular and sustainable businesses throughout his career. Read less

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Phil has been the Managing Director of the Jarratt Group of Companies for over 30 years; with a strong background and extensive experience in Supply Chain Logistics, Multi Modal Transport and The Agri Sector. Based in Brisbane, Australia; The Jarratt Group includes Jarratt Transport Solutions Pty Ltd and SEFAAS Pty Ltd. Jarratt Transport Solutions has a national footprint across Australia servicing all sectors of the freight task. SEFAAS is a woody biomass pellet production business with many large feedstock supply agreements in place to support multiple offtake pellet supply contracts. Read less

Erisa Senerdem is editor for the Argus Biomass Report. She has previously covered Petroleum Coke and contributed to the Argus Coal Daily International report as well as covering gas and power markets at Argus. Prior to Argus, she has worked as a researcher, university lecturer, journalist and a consultant. She has a Ph.D. in economics, with a special focus on the energy field. Read less

Andrea leads biofeedstocks and biofuels activities at Eni. He became the head of biofuels trading at Eni Trading and Shipping in 2019, with responsibility for redesigning and enlarging biofeedstocks and biofuels trading activities. In 2020 he took over the role of head of supply for Eni. Since 2021, he has been a member of the board of directors of Eni Trading and Shipping. With more than 17 years’ experience within the group, he has held roles in several countries, including as German and Austrian branch manager, head of gas and power sales in France, Italy and the Benelux, and lead originator for gas, power and emissions. Read less

Simon has 30 years of experience in banking (legal), power project development, corporate M&A and private equity. Simon is an Industry Advisor of Solaris Fund, a Japanese hedge fund. Simon is also a Senior Consultant of Lockton Companies, a global top 10 insurance broker. Prior to joining LDC, Simon was a Partner of The Longreach Group from 2007 to 2011. Simon sat on the Executive Board of EnTie Commercial Bank in Taiwan for the turnaround of the bank. Between LDC and Longreach, Simon spent 16 months in Dalian, China to set up a government- sponsored Renminbi private equity fund. Before joining Longreach, Simon was General Manager of Asia-Pacific Business Development (M&A) for GE’s industrial businesses (Energy, Oil & Gas, Aviation, Healthcare, Transportation, Water Technologies and general industrial). Simon was based in Beijing from 2000 to April 2012. Prior to joining GE in 2001, Simon specialized in power project investment in Greater China and held positions as Business Development Director and China Regional Director for Southern Company in the US (Fortune #153); and Project Counsel for China Light & Power in Hong Kong. Simon sat on the Boards of Huadian Power International (a big 5 genco in China with 56,000MW installed capacity) and the 1,980MW Shajiao C Power Plant JV in Guangdong, China. Read less

Christian Rakos has been President of the World Bioenergy Association since May 2020. He is Chief Executive of Save Energy Austria, a company producing and trading energy efficiency certificates. Christian was President of the European Pellet Council in 2010-16 and since mid-2005 has been an Executive Director for Austrian pellet industry association ProPellets Austria. In 2004-05 he worked at the Irish Renewable Energy Information Office as European Projects Manager. Christian joined the Austrian Energy Agency in 1998 where he was responsible for renewable energies with a special focus on bioenergy. Between 1988 and 1998 he worked at the Institute for Technology Assessment at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Read less

Miho Okuno is a Sustainability Manager of RENOVA, Inc. in Tokyo. She joined RENOVA as consultant in 2009 and has provided consulting services for central/local governments and private sector in the fields of recycling, biomass utilization, carbon crediting, energy efficiency projects in domestic and SE countries. In recent years, she is involved in the biomass sustainability and work closely with Biomass Power Association Japan (BPA). She obtained her master’s degree in molecular biology from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo. Read less

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David Wong is the marketing director of Rainbow Pellet, which has been producing pellets since 2014 together with its associated group of companies. The family-owned company has been supplying the Asian market actively and more recently, it has also been selling into the Europe market. The wood pellet business is a subsidiary of another family business which focuses on international sawed lumber trade since 1985. Rainbow Pellet holds PEFC certification and aims to be SBP certified by January 2020. The company is currently the leading wood pellet manufacturer in Malaysia. Read less

Carsten Huljus is Chief Executive of the Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP), a not-for-profit multi-stakeholder organisation that has developed an independent third-party certification system to provide assurance that woody biomass is sourced from legal and sustainable sources. Over the past 20 years Carsten has been involved in forest sustainability and chain of custody certification (FSC, PEFC), consulting and related activities and projects globally on behalf of private clients, GIZ, the World Bank, WWF, FAO and EBRD. Read less

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Andy has worked in the UK’s organics and alternative fuels sectors for more than 14 years, including nine years at SUEZ UK. Andy’s focus is on the commercial development of alternative fuels for the wood, RDF and SRF markets requiring the development of their fuel production facilities and associated supply chains. Under his leadership, SUEZ UK became the largest exporter of alternative fuels and the first company to successfully supply SRF to non-EU markets for the cement industry. Subsequently, Andy set up his own consultancy business for companies involved in the alternative fuels markets, with a focus on emerging markets. It is in this role that he serves as senior adviser to N+P. Andy is also chairman of the Wood Recyclers’ Association in the UK, which represents UK producers and European energy and panel board consumers. Read less

Andrew Jones is the Deputy Editor for Argus Asia Coal. He joined Argus in 2009, based in the company’s Singapore office. His initial focus was on the Asia-Pacific dry bulk and tanker markets before switching to the coal desk, where he now focuses on price discovery, news and analysis of regional thermal coal and petroleum coke markets. Having previously worked at sea, Andrew started his journalism career in the UK before moving to Asia in 2006 as a correspondent with Dow Jones Newswires/The Wall Street Journal, where he covered various regional commodities markets. Read less

Sam Hong joined Argus Media Singapore in March 2018, where she covers the Asian biomass market as a reporter. She moved to Singapore from South Korea in 2013 to work at an energy brokerage firm as a petrochemicals broker, mainly in charge of toluene transactions in the physical market, and benzene and paraxylene paper swaps. Sam also previously worked as a petrochemicals broker in South Korea, covering the toluene physical market. Read less

Freddie started work as a price reporter with ICIS Heren, covering commodities from power to gas to coal, before moving into the sharper end of the business with Noble Group, becoming their senior market analyst for thermal and coking coal. From there he moved to EdF where he worked as a fuel originator, working as part of a team that sourced 10mn t/yr of coal and 250,000 t/yr of biomass for UK power plants. Freddie joined Argus as business development manager in January 2014, focusing on growing the company’s coal, iron ore, petroleum coke and biomass indexation and coverage. Read less

Muhamad Fadhil is Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at Argus, focusing on Asia expansion sectors and strategic initiatives. Before joining Argus, Fadhil was Head of Middle East Markets for ICIS in Dubai, where he led market engagement and strategy. He also previously worked for Channel NewsAsia, Hill & Associates and the O&S Group of Companies. Fadhil holds master degrees from IE Business School and the National University of Singapore. He is currently a doctoral student at Warwick Business School, specialising in energy transition. Read less