One year after joining OPC to lead the South East Asia Surface Business, Kavindran Nagarathnam reflects on a year of regional growth, major project delivery and the expansion of OPC’s Surface Engineering capability onto the global stage.
June 2026 marks twelve months since Kavindran Nagarathnam joined OPC, with an initial mandate to lead the company’s South East Asia Surface Business. Over the intervening period, that remit has supported clients across the region in advancing projects from concept and feasibility, through to technical delivery and operational readiness.
Throughout this period, South East Asia has continued to consolidate its position as a significant growth market, underpinned by sustained investment in gas infrastructure, liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, industrial development and energy-transition initiatives.
Drawing on OPC’s established standing across the subsurface disciplines, the regional effort has centred on extending that expertise into surface engineering, affording clients continuity of technical support across the full project lifecycle.
A defining development of the year was the establishment of OPC’s South East Asia regional hub, PT OPC South East Asia, in Jakarta, Indonesia. The new entity affords the company a permanent local presence, enabling closer engagement with clients and partners and reinforcing its capacity to deliver projects in proximity to the markets they serve.
The engagements secured during the period illustrate the breadth of this activity. They include:
- Owner’s Engineer services for an LNG import and regasification facility
- A pre-feasibility and bankable feasibility study for a 2.4 GW LNG-to-power facility
- Technical advisory on early engineering and land preparation for an LNG liquefaction facility
- A feasibility study for the expansion of an LNG terminal, incorporating additional storage and receiving facilities
From Regional Growth to Global Leadership
What originated as a regional portfolio has since broadened in geographic scope, extending to a feasibility study for a trans-regional crude transfer scheme and the conceptualisation of a field development plan in Africa. This progression offers early indication that the operating model developed in South East Asia is transferable to other markets.
The composition of demand reflects two distinct dynamics. Across Asia, the energy transition has been the predominant theme, driven largely by the shift toward transitional fuels for power generation, and gas-to-power schemes in particular. In South East Asia, this tendency has been reinforced by the region’s fragmented electrification and distribution networks, which have generated a substantial pipeline of such work.
Concurrently, geopolitical developments in the Middle East have renewed emphasis on conventional hydrocarbons – crude oil and natural gas – sustaining global demand for field development planning.
On 1 January 2026, Kavindran Nagarathnam was appointed to the Board of Directors of OPC Ltd (UK), assuming corporate responsibility for the company leadership of its Global Surface Business. The appointment carries the momentum established in South East Asia onto a global footing, reflecting both the company’s broader ambitions in surface engineering and the increasing strategic weight of the region within OPC’s wider portfolio.
Reflecting on the year, Nagarathnam observed:
“South East Asia remains among the most dynamic energy markets globally, and clients increasingly require partners able to combine regional understanding with access to international technical expertise. Over the past year, our focus has been on establishing strong relationships and demonstrating how OPC’s collaborative approach, particularly across the surface engineering disciplines, enables clients to make better-informed decisions and to advance projects with greater confidence. The model we have established in South East Asia is one we now intend to extend across the wider Middle East, Asia and Africa, applying the same combination of regional insight and international capability in those markets.”
The Next Phase of Growth
Looking to the year ahead, the strategic priorities are twofold: to consolidate Asia as OPC’s Centre of Excellence for Power and New Energy, broadening the service lines offered in these areas; and to develop the company’s position in Middle East and Africa in particular where the establishment of a further regional hub is currently under consideration.
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