A new Japanese company, Gas One (Cambodia) Co Ltd, aims to tap into the surge of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage in the Kingdom by providing engineering and supply solutions to large-scale developments, its chief executive said yesterday.

The firm, which launches today, is a subsidiary of Japanese energy firm Saisan Co Ltd, which operates in Australia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam and China.

“Our first target market will be Japanese customers and developers that are building in Cambodia,” said Sachiko Shinozuka, CEO of Gas One (Cambodia). “Then we hope to expand our client base to any new developer.”

She said the company hopes to bid for contracts to engineer and supply upcoming developments such as Aeon’s second mall, the Parkson City Centre mall and borey or condominium developments that use LPG.

“We are still studying the market for LPG in Cambodia, but we can see that it is expanding,” she said, adding that while the Japanese market for LPG was shrinking rapidly, Cambodia was enjoying an annual growth rate of around 20 per cent.

Gas One (Cambodia) has partnered with Energy Giant and Trading Co Ltd, a Cambodian company that has been importing fuel from Thailand and Vietnam since 2012.

Andy Lay, chairman of Energy Giant and a shareholder of Gas One (Cambodia), said that partnership was a strategic decision to bring new uses for LPG beyond filling up fuel cylinders for cooking.

“The company will specialise in both vertical and horizontal building solutions,” he said. According to him, Energy Giant has grown from importing 5,000 tonnes of LPG in 2012, to 22,000 tonnes last year.

“We expect that LPG use will grow annually by 20 to 25 per cent over the next five years,” he said, adding that it is estimated that 70 per cent of Phnom Penh households currently use LPG.

While Lay said that the new company would have four or five main competitors – most notably Sokimex and Kampuchea Tela – he believes the company would only grow off of its established base of customers.

“It won’t be hard to compete. We have our own segment of the market and our own business strategy,” he said. “And in the future we will look to diversify our imports away from Thailand and Vietnam and look toward places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and possibly Indonesia.”

The new company’s LPG will sell at a retail value of $680 per tonne, he said.