IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-3-031-91806-3_9.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The White Guys in Tokyo

In: The Rivers of Money

Author

Listed:
  • Adi Imsirovic

    (Surrey Clean Energy)

  • Colin Bryce

    (Energex Partners)

Abstract

This chapter explores the evolution of oil and commodity trading in Asia from the 1970s through the 1990s, focussing on the role of expatriate traders in Tokyo and the subsequent rise of Singapore as a global oil trading hub. It examines how Japan’s economic boom and capital market liberalisation attracted Western traders, while local trading houses (Sogo Sosha) maintained exclusive control over domestic business. As Tokyo became too expensive and restrictive, trading companies such as Phibro, Marc Rich, and Trans World Oil relocated to Singapore, drawn by favourable tax policies and a thriving refining industry. The chapter highlights key players, including Shell and Kuo International, as well as the strategic partnerships formed with China and Indonesia. It also discusses the influence of regulatory changes, market innovations like oil processing deals, and the social dynamics of traders navigating Asia’s rapidly growing energy markets. Ultimately, the chapter illustrates how Singapore emerged as Asia’s leading oil trading centre, shaping the region’s financial and physical oil markets for decades to come.

Suggested Citation

  • Adi Imsirovic & Colin Bryce, 2025. "The White Guys in Tokyo," Springer Books, in: The Rivers of Money, chapter 0, pages 145-163, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-91806-3_9
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-91806-3_9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-91806-3_9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.