Kate Lee

S&P Global Commodity Insights

Associate Director, Aromatics

Kate joined S&P Global Commodity Insights in Singapore as principle research analyst in aromatics, in October 2022. She first entered the petrochemical industry in 2006 when she joined OceanConnect in Singapore to be part of a lean team that started up its petrochemicals broking desk. In that role, she brokered across the entire BTX chain of toluene, benzene, xylenes and styrene monomer, as well as gasoline blending components, for the Asia market, bringing that desk from creation to recognition.

This 16-year journey in the petrochemicals industry took her from being a petrochemicals broker, to trader, to price assessment and market reporter and now to analysis and forecasting. As a trader for a Middle East-based solvents distributor, not only did she expand its Asia-based list of suppliers, she was also part of a two-man team that started its Asia petrochemicals trading desk. Her past 8 years were spent at Argus Media, building up her expertise in price assessments. She also enjoyed covering the seismic changes in the aromatics and olefins markets. Her portfolio at Argus spanned toluene, mixed xylenes, MTBE, ethylene, benzene and styrene monomer.

She graduated from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore with a business studies degree, with a major in marketing and is currently refreshing her knowledge by doing a PowerMBA. Prior to entering the petrochemicals industry, she has a broad range of experiences in conference management, marketing of research level medical books and journals, and advertising sales for publications targeted at the purveyors of luxury.