SINGAPORE, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell has appointed the global head of its fuel oil and feedstocks trading as president of one of its East Asian units, the first Asian to head the subsidiary, the company said on Friday.

Philip Choi, 55, a Shell veteran of 25 years, will take over as president of Shell International Eastern Trading Co. (SIETCO) from Oct. 1, succeeding Phil Snaith, a spokesman said.

SIETCO mainly handles the trading of oil products from its Singapore refinery.

Choi, who started his career in Shell as a process technologist at its Singapore refinery and traded across the oil product barrel, is currently the oil major's Global Products Leader for fuel oil and feedstocks, a role he has held since 1999. He will be replaced by Loyd Garrison.

Shell is a major player in the East Asian refined products market with several refineries in the region including a 458,000 barrels per day (bpd) facility in Singapore, its largest in Asia.

It also has stakes in three refineries in Japan under the Showa Shell umbrella, totalling 515,000 bpd, and smaller facilities of between 86,000 and 155,000 bpd in Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia.