About Us
Chairman letter: a new chapter
The energy world has moved to energy transition. COP25 Paris mandated carbon dioxide emission need to halve from 2010 level by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050, to limit warming to 1.5’C. Today’s COP28 in Dubai focuses is on the financing challenges.
Benchmark group has also moved on as an investor, developer, and operator from oil & gas to clean energy with a focus on solar, hydrogen, nuclear, and building integrated supply chain from materials to products like nickel (battery) and copper (grid). All related to clean energy.
Our global proven expertise in large scale project development in oil & gas will enable us to push ahead with the new challenges. We have delivered large scale oil developments in difficult markets and jurisdictions: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, East Africa. Our partnership approach with host governments remains a key success factor.
Our market focus is in the high-growth ASEAN energy market with a population of over 670 million and GDP of $3.6 trillion. By 2030 ASEAN will be the fourth largest economy in the world.
One key focus is the Green Corridor of renewable energy supply from Indonesia to Singapore initially, and over time, through a regional grid, to other ASEAN markets. Singapore requires an initial 10 GW solar power (and 20GW battery storage) from Indonesia, building a $50 billion regional renewable hub. We look forward to collaborating with Chinese partners in this development. We have worked with Chinese partner in the past when we divested our Kazak oil production to CITIC-China for $1.9 billion.
Over 14 years ago we saw the solar potential when we invested in Glasspoint in 2009, a silicon valley startup which had developed solar to steam technology which has been used by Shell in Oman to produce heavy oil. We will continue to invest in industrial scale innovation, essential to continue to bring the cost down to a target of $20/MWh or $1/G-joule.
Our solar optimism is underpinned by the fact the world today used 26 terawatt/day of energy compared to the 160,000 TW/day of solar energy, with 80,000 TW captured by the earth available for use, the rest is reflected back! Further, the air, land, ocean converted solar to 870TW/day of wind energy.
The Global South, including countries like Chile, Namibia, Kenya, and Indonesia contain vast amounts of the resources critical to the energy transition. Benchmark’s focus is on developing Indonesia’s renewable potential.
In conclusion, I wanted to thank my colleagues in senior management and all our staff for gearing up to play our part and to capture the opportunity in the energy transition.
Best wishes,
Al Njoo, Chairman
Benchmark Group
Glasspoint, world’s larget solar-to-steam for heavy oil production, operated by Shell, Oman
Chairman CITIC, the late Wang Jun and Al Njoo
Benchmark Group is privately held based in Singapore, and was founded by Al Njoo over 25 years ago. Al started his career in banking with JPMorgan-Chase with Asia Pacific coverage in infrastructure and energy finance.
Benchmark Group, a co-founder of Nations Energy, Calgary, has acquired, developed, and successfully monetized three previous oil developments since 1997: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, California.
All of these projects had negligible production at the time of acquisition. They were assets considered too difficult or uneconomic to develop. Through its skilled operators, cost-efficient contractors, and smart financing, Nations Energy successfully created pioneering developments out of these assets.
The Group has now participated in the energy transition with a focus on solar, hydrogen, nuclear, and building integrated supply chain from resources (nickel, copper) to products like battery and smart grid.
Benchmark
Successful energy developments
Karazhanbas, Kazakhstan
The most significant of Benchmark’s past developments was the Karazhanbas Field in Kazakhstan. Acquired in 1997, Nations Energy (co-founded by Benchmark) invested US$500M over the next ten years to rehabilitate the oilfield, establishing production of 50,000 barrels of oil per day.
Mishovdag-Kalameddin, Azerbaijan
At the time of acquisition, there were approximately 900 wells, but only 300 of them were producing. Nations Energy executed an extensive well repair and recompletion program as well as installing new water separation and reinjection facilities in order to fix historical pipeline corrosion problems. This development program was supported by a US$45 million debt and equity facility from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Northwest Lost Hills, California
When Nations Energy acquired a 100% interest in the Northwest Lost Hills, California, heavy oil field, it was a completely greenfield development — there was no production, steam flood infrastructure, nor central processing facilities. Within 5 years, production reached 4,000 barrels of oil per day from 271 wells.
