News
Watson Fuels – UK
investment strategy
Looking at home in one of the company’s tankers
is Glenn Tyrie, national fleet and compliance
manager for Watson Fuels, with Mathew Brown
HSSE manager for World Fuel Services facing
F
ounded by Anthony Watson in 1957, Watson Fuels became part of World Fuel Services in a
£117m deal in 2014.
Having recently embarked on a three-year cycle of investment in the UK across
areas of operations, depot infrastructure and customer experience, World Fuel Services’ global
leadership team were present for a ribbon cutting ceremony when Watson Fuels officially opened
its new Norwich customer contact centre in mid-November.
“The launch of the Norwich office represents an important step forward in the overall vision
for the future of the Watson business,” said Bob Taylor, managing director of Watson Fuels.
“Our parent company have made a tremendous commitment to the UK, supporting a
programme of investment in new vehicles and depot improvements, and helping us to launch new
office locations like this one.”
Delighted to be introducing a number of cutting-edge systems and technologies at the
Norwich office, Bob remarked that over the next two years the new Norwich office would create up
to 30 new jobs for local residents.
Michael Crosby, executive vice president of global
land at World Fuel Services Corporation, was among
those attending the opening of the Norwich office
OnlineFuels and Shell to build
digital fuel sales platform
O
nlineFuels, a leading B2B online fuel
sales platform in the UK, and Shell
Deutschland Oil GmbH have entered
into a joint venture in Germany.
The joint venture sees the creation of
OLF Deutschland GmbH and the launch of a
fuel sales platform for the commercial B2B
market in Germany. OnlineFuels Deutschland
intends to cooperate with other oil and energy
companies in Germany.
“Germany is the largest fuel market in
Europe – an ideal place for us to expand our
online offerings,” explained James Stairmand,
4 Fuel Oil News | January 2019
founder and CEO of OnlineFuels.
“With an online platform we want to
give our B2B customers the opportunity to
order products around the clock to mitigate
potential exposures,” said Jörg Debus, Shell
commercial fuels manager Europa/Africa.
“In addition, the platform aims to make
the oil purchasing process as simple and
efficient as possible for our clients.”
The go-live is planned for the first half of
2019. The company’s headquarters will be in
Hamburg.
James Stairmand, founder and CEO of
OnlineFuels (r), and Marc Noy, managing
director of OnlineFuels Deutschland