Luke began his career in Malaysia with Esso (an affiliate of Exxon) in 1992 as an associate marketing representative (Industrial and Wholesale).

He spent the subsequent 7 years taking on a diverse spectrum of responsibilities across Esso Malaysia from Marketing to Distribution Operations to Supply/Demand Sales Planning.

In 1999, Luke joined Ras Laffan LNG project (RasGas) in Qatar, responsible for starting up and implementing long-term LNG supply contracts, primarily with South Korea and India.

In 2003, Luke was appointed as a member of Qatar Helium Marketing Team to start up Qatar 1 and implement its long-term helium supply contracts with Air Liquide and BOC (Linde). Within the next 10 years, Luke was instrumental in commissioning Qatar 2 and overseeing its long-term contracts with Air Liquide, Linde and Iwatani Corporation. In 2014, Qatar became the largest liquid helium exporter in the world. To date, Qatar boasts its helium production capacities to supply around 35-40% of the current global demand.

In 2017, having worked for multinationals over 25 years in the oil and gas/LNG/helium industries, Luke founded LM Intelligas Sdn. Bhd. where he continues his illustrious helium journey as an independent consultant.

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In 2018, Luke completed a significant market study/update on key helium consuming countries in Asia, including China.

Luke Manickam holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) from University of Malaya and has extensive experience, having worked in Qatar LNG/helium/pipeline gas world-scale projects for 18 years, from tender development/management to supply contracts negotiation/stewardship, project feasibility studies/startups, sales/price reviews, USA BLM helium program operations and ISO supply/logistics.