By Ismail Aniemu
Victor Kalu, Executive Chairman of Vindi Petroleum explains to reporters in Lagos, how his company is revolutionising fuel availability in more cost effective manner for consumers and creating business openings for investors in the sector
Excerpt
LAST YEAR FOCUS
Our vision last year was to have as many branches as possible. We started our own franchise, which brought an innovation to how people opened retail outlets.
Executive Chairman, Vindi Petroleum
Before now, to have a retail outlet, you need about ₦100m to ₦2 billion to have one petrol station that is why ordinary citizens who desire to change the country cannot come into the oil and gas industry.
DEMYSTIFYING INVESTORS FEAR
Some people said the oil and gas industry has been at the mercy of a cabal because it’s a deep pocket industry. We came on the scene and said we’re not going to accept it, so we invited Nigerians to partner with us.
Last year we brought out a program where you don’t have to own the entire station you just have to own a pump, then we spread as many branches as possible.
This year, we have another vision. That is why I’m here to talk to you about what we are doing this year. many felt it was impossible for us to do what we did last year, but we did it. Our programs were oversubscribed from all over the country. As a matter of fact, we only slowed down because of regulations.
REVIVING DYING STATIONS
Right now, we are renovating a station in Ibadan. So rather than this tedious, time-consuming process of building our stations, we have another solution, which is what we are doing this year.
Late last year, the independent marketers wrote a letter to the president that they needed a bailout . About 10,000 of them said they were closing shop because they could not afford to use PMS any longer.
Before this time last year, a truck of PMS cost about 5 million naira but as we speak you need a minimum of 50 million naira to buy a truck and to have a station properly serviced, you need two trucks. So imagine that you have five stations. You are looking at ₦500 million just to buy a product.
So you have to tie down that money because you can’t do anything with it. It has to go into production and most people don’t have such funds to just put away. Now, that has been a problem.
But for us at Vindi Petroleum, we have a solution to it. Our plan this year is to distribute one billion liters of fuel and we are already on the way to do that.
FUELYAPA INITIATIVE
Through our platform, which we have already launched FuelYapa.com. When we launched FuelYapa, the idea was for people to order for fuel online and then pick up at various stations and one of the things we achieved last year was to build the network.
Right now, all of you have to do is register. It’s already been approved by Google, so you can download it. You can go to FuelYapa.com, register as a consumer and search for stations. Right now, we have over a thousand stations on FuelYapa.com in partnership with us that is the largest network of petroleum refueling stations in Nigeria today.
So, what we are doing now is to let people come and subscribe. When people subscribe, we can have the user base that can help us to negotiate the right amount of PMS for the right amount of price. We’ve been cutting out so much of the minimum pricing structure that makes PMS go up.
DIRECT DEALING WITH CONSUMERS
We are dealing directly with consumers and nobody has ever done this before and it gives us the biggest leverage. We want all Nigerians to go online and subscribe even for the one that you are using in your house, you can subscribe.
We have a program called PetroKeg, with PetroKeg, you can order fuel from our station, or your office . You don’t have to look for petrol. We have people that can bring it to you and can also order and go to anywhere in Nigeria to pick up. You can reserve your fuel as well
What it means is that imagine if you are traveling to Benin and you notice that you don’t have fuel and you don’t live there and you don’t know the petrol station to get it from all you have to do is log on to our site, you will see fuel stations in Benin. It has a GPS tracker so you are never going to get lost. You can drive and navigate to that station and pick up your product.
GETTING BEST DEALS LOCALLY AND ABROAD
But for the petrol station, we have Dangote and and all of them and finally, we are going outside of the country to galvanize the biggest supply of petrol into this country.
What we are doing with the fuel is that we are distributing directly to the stations in partnership with us. We are calling on all existing stations to come on board to get fuel from us. As long as you have the right structure, the right demand, you are in a good location, we can supply you fuel, and then we will manage the payment process and recover the money because we will have a cashier at your station to ensure that the money is managed.
Just because we are very ambitious we are offering private offers to Nigerians. Why should you overlook other brands and partner with us? If you order online, you will get at least 50% discount than when you walk into our stations. We want Nigerians to participate in our private offer.
Each vessel is made up of 2 million litres. We want to bring as many as possible. But you can participate and take it as an investment because what it means is that we have lots 500-litre lots, 1,000-litre lots, and 5,000-litre lots. But the private offer is exclusively to only have 5,000 lots.
These 5,000 lots, will be given to a petrol station that needs it with a certification and what it does is that they become petroleum guru.
How many NNPC stations are in the country? It’s about 900 they are not everywhere but the private ones are 33,000. Imagine the ratio. Even if you say you want to buy the best price of NNPC how many of them are there in the country?
So, what we want to do is to build another cheap alternative for Nigerians, just like what NNPC is doing and that’s why we want you to partner with us
