BP Reshuffles Trading Leadership as Southeast Asia LNG Demand Tests Infrastructure Limits
Carol Howle's retirement and Kerry Dryburgh's departure hand Sam Skerry the BP trading book as Southeast Asian demand growth tests the LNG supply chain.
Carol Howle, head of BP's supply and trading arm, announced plans to retire on Friday (2026-07-03), while Kerry Dryburgh, executive vice-president of people, culture and communications, also confirmed she will leave the company later in the third quarter. Sam Skerry will step into the executive vice-president of supply, trading and shipping role.6
The reshuffle arrives as Asian LNG markets are priced against a forecast of substantial regional demand growth. JKM, the Asian LNG benchmark, stood at $16.07 per mmBtu on Friday (2026-07-03). Power demand from data centres, electric vehicles and green industrial parks across Southeast Asia is forecast to grow by more than 100 terawatt-hours over the next three to four years, according to Bain & Company and Standard Chartered — a step-change that would support LNG offtake if the supporting infrastructure keeps pace.1,4
The infrastructure caveat carries weight. Bain and Standard Chartered identified an $18 billion annual shortfall in grid investment across Southeast Asia through 2035.1 Generation that cannot be dispatched for want of transmission does not consume LNG. The physical demand ceiling, rather than the notional forecast, determines actual offtake growth.
Singapore is working to close part of the gap. Its Energy Market Authority and the Asian Development Bank renewed a memorandum of understanding to support ASEAN power grid interconnection projects, with Singapore separately holding conditional awards to import up to 3.4 gigawatts of firmed solar from Indonesia.5,3 Mott MacDonald estimates that volume would increase the region's installed solar capacity by more than 70 percent, but the projects still face financing and regulatory hurdles.3
The scale of infrastructure lead-time compounds the delivery problem. European precedents suggest project development costs for subsea power cables exceeding $60 million, with booking deposits — typically 10 to 20 percent of cable value — required two or more years before construction begins.3 At that lead time, projects needed by 2030 require investment decisions now.
Route risk is a parallel variable for Asian LNG pricing. Bab al-Mandab, the strait between Africa and the Arabian peninsula, is the channel through which an estimated 12 percent of global trade by volume normally flows, and roughly 30 percent of global container traffic.2 Atlantic Basin LNG cargoes destined for Northeast Asian markets cross this chokepoint. Any renewed disruption in the Red Sea corridor would lift delivered costs and affect the economics of the arbitrage between European and Asian gas prices.
Also in Friday's (2026-07-03) industry moves column, Claire Mack joined SSEN Transmission, the network operator for the high-voltage electricity grid across northern Scotland and the Scottish islands.6
In UK domestic gas, the West Newton development operated by Rathlin Energy gained new technical leadership on Friday (2026-07-03) with a hire who previously worked at Impact Oil and Gas, where he helped grow the company's value from £50 million to £1 billion. Rathlin holds a 66.67 percent interest in the PEDL 183 licence, while Reabold Resources holds approximately 79.8 percent of Rathlin.6
For Skerry, stepping into BP's trading leadership later in the third quarter, the Southeast Asian demand picture is the principal medium-term variable for the LNG book. The $18 billion annual grid investment shortfall means the 100-terawatt-hour demand forecast will likely materialise more gradually than the headline number implies. The speed of grid development across ASEAN — not the demand signal alone — determines when Asian LNG pricing moves structurally higher.