Fuel Oil News October 2018 | Page 15

Wholesale / Refining Despite a challenging market, Mabanaft remains in a strong and stable position. As a lean and agile business, we’re able to adapt to market conditions and quickly respond to customer demand. Being part of a wider group, Marquard and Bahls AG, also allows us to leverage partnerships within the group and punch above our weight. We’re continuing to expand supplies to the aviation sector and have signed long-term deals with a number of major commercial airlines and tour operators. We currently supply nine UK airports and earlier this year we expanded our footprint outside the UK by supplying Malta airport. Later in the year, we plan to announce further strategic investments in jet infrastructure, again demonstrating our long-term commitment to this market. Despite a drop in diesel car sales, our diesel volumes have been on a par with recent years. We expect diesel to remain an important income stream for the foreseeable future, particularly in the commercial haulage sector. We continue to explore alternative revenue streams to further strengthen our resilience over the coming years, and are currently evaluating a number of opportunities to supply into complementary markets. Grangemouth produces over nine million tonnes of clean fuels and one million tonnes of chemical product every year. “As Scotland’s only refiner, we are the primary supplier of aviation fuel for its major airports, and a major supplier of petrol and diesel ground fuels across the central belt,” said Petroineos commercial manager Daniel Brain. “Presently our road terminal can load in the range of 600 trucks a day, moving some three million tonnes of product per annum into the Scottish market but we know that the fuels market will only continue to change going forward. “The next big hurdle revolves around changes to fuel oils under RTFO with an increasing percentage of that fuel needing to be generated from a non-fossil, bio-source. Having an increased element of production displaced is going to be a challenge to which all refiners will need to respond. We know that there are established and emerging businesses and plenty of creative people with ideas around biofuels: we want to engage with them and look at how we can co-operate here on site at the refinery, making best use of our extensive infrastructure. This forms part of our longer-term goal to turn Grangemouth refinery into a comprehensive energy hub.” Mabanaft – a strong and stable position Mabanaft is a market leader in terms of IT solutions. Our unique online service Mabalive now fully supports end-to-end deal processing, making it quick and easy for customers to order fuel and manage their account online. While Mabalive provides efficiency, Mabanaft’s expert team of marketeers is always on- hand to offer advice and support to help our customers achieve optimum value. As Brexit looms, we will continue to support our customers by providing assured reliability of supply and the highest standards of customer service (both rated good or excellent by 97.5% of respondents in our 2018 customer survey). Our generous payment terms offer additional financial benefit, whilst our flexible approach allows us to meet our customers’ unique requirements. Petroineos – a comprehensive energy hub Fuel Oil News | October 2018 15