Rawee Boonsinsukh, Executive Vice President of Innovation and New S-Curve Business Development at Bangchak Corporation Public Company Limited, and Komut Maneechai, Vice President of BCPR Pte. Ltd., participated as speakers and panellists at the Norway-Asia Business Summit (NABS) 2023, organised by the Thai-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce from November 30th to December 1st, 2023, at the Avani+ Riverside Bangkok Hotel. The summit attracted approximately 500 participants, including Norwegian industry leaders, government support units from Norway, and Norwegian diplomatic missions from across Asia.
During the session on the Electric Vehicle Landscape, Rawee presented an overview of the Electric Vehicle 2 Wheelers (EV2W) business in Thailand, highlighting the growth opportunities in the EV2W industry. He explained how this served as an impetus for the development of Winnonie, the first Thai startup to pioneer the EV motorcycle service platform with an automatic battery swapping network. Winnonie aims to be a leader in the Battery as a Service (BaaS) platform for EV bikes to meet the increasing demand for clean energy electric motorcycle usage. Presently, Winnonie has approximately 1,000 users and has an opportunity to expand its business in alignment with national and global trends.
Regarding successful business investments in Norway, Komut remarked on the expansion of investments in the upstream natural resources sector. Bangchak invested in OKEA ASA through BCPR Company Limited, which operates exploration and production (E&P) businesses and is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. This investment allowed Bangchak to access energy, resources, and technologies that enhance energy security while providing experience, knowledge, and expertise in upstream businesses for the Bangchak Group. In addition to strategic growth and business capability enhancement, Norway is a country with rich crude oil and natural gas resources, clean energy policies and targets, and measures and policies (such as tax incentives) conducive to long-term business growth. OKEA currently operates six oil fields in the Norwegian Sea, with a production capacity of 23,700 barrels of oil per day (boed), where crude accounts for 68%, natural gas for 24%, and liquefied natural gas for 8%. In the first quarter of 2023, OKEA signed an agreement for the acquisition of the Statfjord petroleum field, which is expected to increase OKEA's production capacity to approximately 37,500 barrels per day by the end of 2023.
The Norway-Asia Business Summit (NABS), first organised in 1998, is hosted by the Thai-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce to strengthen trade and investments between Norway and Asia and enhance cross-border cooperation among leading institutions, companies, and technology clusters. Bangchak is a leading company in Thailand with investments in Norway through OKEA ASA.
