Rani Awad

ATLANTIC FUELEX| RANI AWAD
We can point out to the potential customer that
we have the storage capacity to enable us to bulk
buy when the price is very much in our favour
Rani Awad
may never go to again. But if you fl y with any
frequency to a particular destination it makes
much more sense to select the best supplier
and then stick with them. That way you can negotiate
a sensible rate and enjoy the benefi ts
that come from having a proper relationship
with your fuel supplier,” he counsels.
Atlantic FuelEx has a dedicated Jet A1 storage
tank at the IL&FS facility in Fujairah. “We
can import fuel from various places, wherever
the market price is in our favour, and we can
resell it to smaller suppliers at various destination
airports where they do not have ready
access to plentiful supplies at the price we can
offer,” he comments.
The arrangement with IL&FS also opens the
door both to Atlantic FuelEx trading bunker
fuels for vessels and to the company providing
jet fuel to military customers. “I already have
a contract from Qatar that lets me ship 120
cubic metres of fuel and we have buyers for
this, so that gives us a very healthy arm to our
upstream activities,” Awad notes.
For business aviation customers, Awad
points out that where Atlantic FuelEx has
contracts with commercial airlines, business
aviation customers benefi t directly from the
uplift in scale provided by those commercial
airline contracts. “Where we are selling a million
US gallons to a commercial customer, we
can meet the needs of a business aviation
customer who only wants 1,000 US gallons at
the same competitive price level as we offer to
the commercial airline. That is a tremendous
price advantage, and it comes together with
the quality assurance that we are contracted
to provide to commercial airlines and the $1
billion of insurance cover that we have on our
operations,” he comments.
Two other recent milestones for Awad have
been the opening of representative offi ces in
Nigeria and Kenya to support its commercial
and general aviation refuelling operations
there, and the development of a major fuel
storage facility in Afghanistan. “I have an
agreement with a Nigerian oil company which
enables me to be very competitive in my pricing
for fuel at fi ve airports in Nigeria and
Kenya. This has enabled us to become the sole
fuel supplier for Arab Air Carrier Organization
(AACO) at those airports. Our customers include
Egypt Airlines, Saudi Airlines, Gulf Air,
Air Arabia and others. This is the fi rst time that
AACO have contracted for 100% of their fuel
needs in Nigeria from a single supplier and is a
tremendous coup for us,” Awad affi rms.
The Afghanistan fuel terminal has a
120,000 metric ton capacity. Atlantic FuelEx
built the terminal through 2013 and it became
operational in 2014;e it serves Kabul
and Kandahar airports as well as US military
bases. This provides Awad’s operation with
yet another solid revenue stream to power
future growth.
With the precipitous drop in the oil price
being a huge concern to both developed and
developing economies, Awad is very interested
in ensuring that Atlantic FuelEx helps to promote
clear thinking and deep analysis around
pricing futures and the supply/demand balance.
“We took a lead role in sponsoring the
AACO Fuel Forum in Dubai, which was held
from the 19th to the 20th of October. The
main topic of the forum was precisely the fact
that the current low oil price is among the
most signifi cant forces in the global economy
today. It has dramatically changed the equation
of aviation business for airlines and fuel
suppliers. The forum was very useful in that it
brought together fuel suppliers and their customer
airlines to really talk through the effects
of this drop,” he comments.
The technical sessions in the forum considered
the latest updates and ameliorations
around the standards that have been put in
place by the industry to regulate operations at
fuel facilities and to ensure quality and safety
during refueling operations.
“My whole philosophy is to focus on customer
service and quality to ensure we build lasting customer
relationships, while constantly looking for
opportunities to build integrated upstream and
downstream capabilities. This is so that we can
combine the highest produce quality with very
competitive pricing,” Awad concludes. So far, that
approach looks to be working a treat!
6 International | Autumn 2015