19 minute read
New Gas Find
Ten apraisal wells were tested by ADNOC in the area straddling Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Mega shallow gas find in area straddling Dubai and Abu Dhabi
ADNOC and Dubai join forces to develop new gas discovery N ew mega natural gas reservoirs discovered by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi border is high-quality organic gas at relatively shallow depths from the earth’s surface.
HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, announced the new shallow gas discovery and also witnessed the agreement signing ceremony between ADNOC and Dubai Supply Authority (Dusup). Royal tweets “Today, my brother Mohammed Bin Zayed and I attended an agreement signing between ADNOC and Dusup to develop one of the largest gas fields discovered between Abu Dhabi and Dubai with 80 trillion cubic feet of reserves. Our land resources will continue to bring and usher in a brighter future,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid said in a tweet on the occasion. “Together with my brother Sheikh Mohammed, we witnessed the announcement of “Jebel Ali Project” gas reservoir that ADNOC will develop in collaboration with Dusup, a new source of energy supplies to support national economy and sustainable growth plans in UAE,” Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed tweeted.
The new discovery is a major step towards achieving gas self-sufficiency by the UAE. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Director-General, Dusup, and Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO, signed the agreement. The discovery of the 80 trillion standard cubic feet (TSCF) of shallow gas resources was made within an area of 5,000 square kilometers between the two emirates with ADNOC drilling more than 10 exploration and appraisal wells. It was first time that ADNOC explored for hydrocarbon resources in Dubai. Massive recoverable reserves This latest announcement comes less than three months after Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Petroleum Council announced increases in hydrocarbon recoverable reserves of 7 billion stock tank barrels (STB) of oil and 58 trillion standard cubic feet (TSCF) of conventional gas, moving the UAE from seventh to the sixth position in both global oil and gas reserves rankings with a total of 105 billion STB of recoverable oil, 273 TSCF of conventional gas and 160 TSCF of unconventional gas resources.
The UAE currently imports gas through Dolphin pipeline to meet its energy needs to produce electricity. The new discovery will be a big leap in the UAE’s efforts towards self-reliance in gas resources.
“We look forward to working closely with ADNOC to further explore gas resources in the area between Abu Dhabi and Dubai as part of diversifying our energy resources,” affirmed Sheikh Ahmed.
“The strategic cooperation agreement between ADNOC and Dusup is a natural evolution of our shared commitment to harness energy resources in the service of the UAE,” stated Dr. Al Jaber. n ADNOC and Dusup to develop one of the largest gas fields with 80 trillion cubic feet of reserves
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Afghanistan re-enters food supply sector with dedicated national pavilion Gulfood 2020 reinforces trend-tracker 25-year legacy
The silver anniversary edition of Gulfood heralded a new era of sector transformation and build on the Dubai event’s 25-year legacy as an on-point trend tracker and robust business facilitator. The mega-event ran from 16 to 20 February at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC).
Leading Brazilian Food Company JBS, the largest animal protein producer in the world, said Gulfood continued to be an important access platform in developing flourishing relations with partners and distributors, as well as serving as a springboard to introduce new products and food solutions into the MENA region.
“It was a very relevant fair for JBS due to its ability to serve a strategic region for our business. Visitors to our stand witnessed very interesting product launches in line with the latest industry trends and the changing needs of regional consumers,” remarked Marcos Delorenzo, director of Marketing & New Business, Seara MENA.
Saudi Arabia potential top of mind
Gulf-based food industry heavyweight Truebell, a leading importer, wholesaler, distributor and exporter with more than 60 brands in its portfolio, leveraged Gulfood 2020 as part of a strategy to tap into an expanding food industry in Saudi Arabia.
With the GCC’s largest country expected to benefit from approximately US$ 59bn of investment by 2021, according to the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), Truebell plans to expand its exclusive distribution of key brands within the Kingdom.
“Trends have evolved in line with Saudi Arabia’s changing demographics, increased disposable incomes and maturing food preferences with demand for varied food stuff, organic ingredients and healthy food products expanding well beyond the most popular and recognisable local brands,” said Bhushant J. Gandhi, Divisional Manager, Retail & Food Service, Truebell.
With growing consumer preferences for healthy food products, the total consumption of organic, gourmet and health products within Saudi Arabia topped US$ 27bn in 2019, according to SAGIA.
With 29 million residents, 50 per cent of which are under the age of 25, Saudi Arabia has the largest population in the GCC and arguably the population most susceptible to Western consumer food trends,” observed Gandhi.
As more operators look to expand their footprint within the Kingdom, local Saudi producers are also looking to build their export potential. Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning food industry will be out in force at Gulfood 2020 with a national pavilion mounted by the Saudi Export Development Authority (SEDA). Al Rabie Saudi Foods Co., one of Saudi Arabia’s largest beverage producers, is aiming to grow its regional market share by promoting its constant consumer-led initiative: healthy and tasty beverages in consumer-friendly, handy and environmentalfriendly Tetra Pak packs that come in different sizes and formats for everyone.
“The focus on no-sugar-added beverages in our unique flavors is part of our continuous pursuit of innovation and product development with the aim of meeting consumer needs and the latest market developments,” said Ghassan Majdali, Deputy Chief Commercial Officer, Marketing, Al Rabie Saudi Foods Co.
Afghan food producers return to the fore
More than 25 Afghani agribusiness producers exhibited in a dedicated national pavilion promoting products including saffron, dried fruits, nuts, grains and wild harvested herbs, spices and medicinal crops including liquorice, cumin, basil, caraway and fennel seeds.
“Our Gulfood 2020 pavilion will reintroduced Afghanistan to all markets and reminded the industry that prior to decades of conflict, Afghani almonds, pomegranates, pistachios, raisins, and apricots were high-demand products across Central and South Asia,” stated Andrew Philip, Technical Advisor for the Afghanistan Pavilion.
For its silver edition, Gulfood’s knowledge forum tackled pressing issues and imminent industry opportunities under the show theme ‘Rethinking Food.’
“We engaged the industry’s leading experts to assess what needs to be done differently in the F&B industry across five core pillars: technological advancements, government and policy-making, marketing practices, lifestyle and markets including developing economies,” explained Trixie LohMirmand, Executive Vice President, Exhibitions & Events, DWTC. n
JAFZA showcases its F&B trade enabling capabilities at Gulfood 2020
DP World forges an integrated logistics and business friendly ecosystem
Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) and DP World were key participants at the recently concluded milestone 25th Anniversary Gulfood 2020 megaevent which was held in Dubai from 16 to 20 February.
The five-day event included the Gulfood Innovation Summit under the theme of ‘Rethinking Food’ to discuss topics such as Governments’ role in shaping the future of food, F&B marketing, tourism and retail and future food technologies.
JAFZA currently contributes 16.4 per cent of Dubai’s total traded volume and over 17 per cent of Dubai’s traded value. JAFZA and Jebel Ali Port currently support over 4,500 port customers. In excess of 480 F&B companies from 66 countries operate in JAFZA.
“DP World UAE Region looks forward to supporting the businesses in the F&B Sector. With Expo 2020 just around the corner, rethinking the F&B industry from a fresh perspective, as Gulfood 2020 promises to
do, will add value to our collective efforts,” commented Mohammed Al Muallem, CEO and Managing Director, DP World, UAE Region, and CEO, JAFZA.
“At Jebel Ali Free Zone, we benefit from a fast and systematic clearance process which is supporting our working capital and speed to fulfill market demand. We take advantage of the extended logistics solutions DP world is offering as well as the wide ports coverage within DP World network which is supporting our export operation across the world,” said Yasir Jamal, Supply Chain Vice President MENA Unilever.
“Hunter Foods exports to over 30 countries and many of the milestones that have been achieved are thanks to the connectivity of Dubai to the world and the efficiency and infrastructure that DP World, UAE Region offers. We are proud to have been the first food factory in JAFZA, which started operations 35 years ago,” said Ananya Narayan, Managing Director, Hunter Foods. The world-class business ecosystem hosts partners capable of food, grain meat, and oil processing, customised grain silos and end-to-end solutions for exports, re-exports and imports.
JAFZA’s dedicated F&B cluster, spread over 1.17 mn sqm, offers value-added logistics services including storage, processing, packaging, bagging and other facilities within both bonded and nonbonded zones. A one-stop-shop, ‘Zadi’ on DP World’s online trade facilitation entity Dubai Trade, enables traders to access all food import related services.
The port infrastructure includes container terminals, general cargo yards, temperature-controlled storage, reefer yards and other ancillary services. The Dubai Logistics Corridor facilitates faster trade flows that benefit the world’s fastestgrowing economies with its multimodal sea-land-air transshipment facility, with on-site customs clearance. n
New expansions at the leading Omani Port and Freezone with renewable energy projects will get operational soon SOHAR Port and Freezone brings in US$ 27bn investment Over one million tonnes of cargo throughput in 2019 reported per week
SOHAR recently conducted its annual business reception at The Chedi Muscat. During the event, SOHAR also looked back over its achievements in the past year while also shedding light on future plans that will take place in the upcoming year.
The event was conducted in the presence of a large number of strategic partners and representatives of the companies working at SOHAR Port and Freezone.
SOHAR Port and Freezone witnessed considerable growth, seeing an average throughput of over one million tonnes of cargo per week over the course of 2019 and bringing in investments of OMR 10.4bn (US$ 27bn) to date.
During 2019, dry bulk was valued at over 36 million tonnes, liquid bulk at over 15 million tonnes and break bulk over one million tonnes. Additionally, the number of vessels that called into the port reached nearly 3,200 vessels, 900 of which were in the last quarter year alone.
Capacity growth Aside from capacity growth, it was announced that the Phase 1 expansion of SOHAR Port South was complete and saw 50 hectares of land added to Port’s present capacity. Work is currently underway for Phase 2, which will see the addition of another 200 hectares to the Port area of 2,000 hectares.
Freezone expansion
There are also plans in the pipeline for the expansion of SOHAR Freezone, which in turn, will increase its capacity to bring in prospective investors.
“We have seen incredible growth in 2019, with SOHAR successfully attracting a majority of international industries to set up shop at the Port and Freezone. This, in turn, creates a positive impact by enhancing our contribution towards the Sultanate’s GDP, supporting the Government of Oman’s diversification objectives and simultaneously creating more job opportunities for the local community,” commented Mark Geilenkirchen, CEO, SOHAR Port.
“We look forward to 2020, which will also see the completion of the SOHAR Port South expansion. The land area has already been earmarked for global giants, such as Trescorp and Total, the latter of which aims to establish an LNG bunkering supply station for vessels at the Port, therefore attracting even more investments to SOHAR,” he added.
Oman’s logistics centre
“Since its establishment, SOHAR has emerged as a global logistics and industrial hub and employs a young, capable and efficient workforce, while simultaneously investing in innovative solutions and developing strategies to meet the Sultanate’s national objectives. We seek to continue our commitment to align
SOHAR Port and Freezone officials in a photo lineup.
ourselves with Oman’s diversification and logistics strategies and attract foreign direct investment to drive further growth,” stated Omar Mahmood Al Mahrizi, Deputy CEO, SOHAR Port and CEO, Freezone.
“This is also enriched by our unique offering of being the only port and free zone in the region that managed under a single entity. Therefore, we are able to provide potential customers with an array of integrated services under one roof,” he continued.
New global investments
“With several new global investments, we are continuing to look for ways to develop a myriad of downstream opportunities, wherein one industry’s waste can be used as fuel for another industry. Other innovations include tapping into sustainable and eco-friendly energy resources to attract even more investments and industries into the region. Additionally, with our lower operating costs, energy-saving systems, easy land lease options, as well as our strategic location to key global markets, we host a distinctive competitive advantage,” Omar added.
Phase 1 expansion of SOHAR Port South had 50 hectares of land added to Port’s present capacity. Work is currently underway for Phase 2, which will add another 200 hectares to the Port area of 2,000 hectares.
“SOHAR Port and Freezone has a wellestablished mission and vision to establish itself as an important sustainable logistics hub in the region. We continue to keep ourselves abreast with the latest technology and developments to ensure maximum benefit not only to the organisation and the surrounding community but to also align ourselves with the Oman Vision 2040,” Geilenkirchen concluded.
Agreements and signings over the course of 2019:
2019 saw the groundbreaking of RFX Parks, Shell and Sanvira, alongside further expansions for Al Tamman Indsil, Matrix Prime and SV Pittie. New partnerships were also forged in the Freezone with Gulf Alloys and Metals and Madhav Surfaces. In an effort to tap into the Sultanate’s renewable energy potential, the partnership with Shell Oman foresees 600 hectares of land being utilised for Solar Photovoltaic (PV) projects. A pioneering project is expected to begin operations in the current year, with the aim of delivering a power supply capacity of 25 MW.
Gulf Alloys and Metals signed an agreement for the creation of a low carbon ferrochrome alloy production facility, capable of manufacturing of 10,000 MT per annum and is a part of the efforts of SOHAR to bring in new global investments. The agreement with Madhav Surfaces aims to develop a quartz manufacturing plant to produce quartz slabs and other quartz products using chrome ore and calcined lime from the local market, to be exported to the USA and Europe. n
Disrupt, or be disrupted
At its core, disruptive technology is the phenomenon whereby an emerging innovation, by design or abruptly, interferes with an already established process—compelling users and stakeholders to change or alter course and tact to overcome the interruption. Old ways of thinking are imprisoning us writes Europe-based Prof. Omera Khan, Strategic Supply Chain Risk expert, author and speaker and regular contributor to Global Supply Chain. In this latest opinion piece, she highlights her wariness with predictions, advocating we best remain guarded and circumspect about the future—Editor.
“I never make predictions — especially about the future,” American writer HL Mencken once tartly observed.
He had a point: predictions are hostages to fortune, and it is not difficult to think of a number of well-known predictions that turned out to be embarrassingly wide off the mark.
Thomas Watson, then President of IBM, wrote in 1943 that he saw a world market for may be five computers. Steve Ballmer, then the Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft, mistakenly saw in 2007 ‘no chance’ of the newly-launched iPhone gaining any significant market share.
Telephones were just a toy that would never catch on, wrote the President of Western Union, William Orton, in 1876, when inventor Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell him the patent.
And so on, and so on. Examples abound. Nevertheless, not everyone has the luxury of being able to avoid being held to account.
Future ready? Those of us who run businesses or supply chains—or those of us who advise those people who run businesses or supply chains—have to make predictions: it’s our job. Then also a business or supply chain that is ill-prepared for the future is a
business or supply chain that may not have much of a future.
Even so, making predictions about disruptive trends is excruciatingly difficult. While it’s easy to laugh at how wrong predictions can be, at the time those predictions may well have appeared to be sober, hard-nosed assessments.
All of which is worth bearing in mind as businesses and supply chains around the world begin figuring out what to do about several disruptive trends and events that are at present competing for our attention.
First up, the sustainability agenda. From the fuel that powers our trucks, ships, trains, and aircraft, to the paper and plastics that make up our packaging, logistics is very much in the crosshairs of sustainability activists’ sights.
Ignoring the issue is not an option—but right now it’s difficult to see what options we do have. A few years ago, the focus was on ‘peak oil’ and running out of the stuff; now investors are alarmed at the prospect of so-called ‘stranded energy assets’— reserves of fossil fuels that may never be extracted because of their impact on climate change.
Geopolitical uncertainties Next up: ongoing geopolitical uncertainties. Trump’s trade wars; Brexit; China and its ‘Belt and Road’ strategy; seemingly perennial Middle East tensions: these are not comfortable times in which to be determining supply chain strategies.
Nor is it solely geopolitical uncertainty that impacts supply chains. From the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 to the more recent CoronaVirus (Covid 19) outbreak, again and again we see what an interconnected world we live in. Within days, an event on the other side of the world can disrupt supply chains thousands of miles away. Supposedly resilient, they turn out to be more fragile than anyone imagined.
Roll it all together, and it is increasingly difficult to avoid the suspicion that present approaches to supply chain management aren’t as effective as we supply chain practitioners fondly imagine.
In short, we need something else— not least a mindset change. Because transformation is only possible when we are willing and able to let go of our old patterns, old models, and indeed old concepts of what constitutes supply chain management.
Prof. Omera Khan
Put another way, the biggest risk that businesses may face today is the risk of doing nothing at all. It is not an exaggeration to say that businesses can choose to disrupt, or to be disrupted.
Changing business landscape As I point out to my students, Uber is the world’s biggest taxi company, but doesn’t own a single taxi cab. Airbnb and Booking.com are the world’s largest hoteliers, but don’t possess any hotels. And after being in business for a quarter of a century, Amazon—the world’s biggest bookseller—is finally experimenting with physical book stores.
Radical stuff, maybe. But those of us prepared to think the unthinkable are in good company. In late 2018, for instance, influential management thinker John Elkington took to the pages of the Harvard Business Review to officially ‘recall’— namely, take back—a concept that he had first launched 25 years ago: the Triple Bottom Line. Simply put, he argued, the Triple Bottom Line was no longer enough. Something else was needed; something bolder.
To those in the know, Elkington’s admission was startling. The Triple Bottom Line has had an enormous impact on businesses’ and supply chains’ approach to corporate and social responsibility, replacing a single-minded focus on profitability a broader focus on social, environmental, and economic impact—the Triple Bottom Line. A quarter of a century on, it has made a big difference. However, it is not enough, acknowledged Elkington: too many businesses see it as a trade-off mechanism, rather than as an absolute test. Something else is required if businesses are to really ‘shift the needle’.
Supply Chain reinvented Another concept that may be ripe for reevaluation is the very notion of the supply chain itself. Look at many actual real-world supply chains, and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that ‘chain’ is arguably too mechanistic a description of fulfilment processes-- too linear, too uni-directional, too evocative of inflexible conveyor belts. In industry after industry, real life doesn’t work like that anymore, if indeed it ever did.
What to replace the term ‘supply chain’ with? I rather like the suggestion that ‘supply web’ would be a better term, a term that is closer to what many of us deal with in practice, and which brings with it values of flexibility and resilience, as well as facilitating two-way flows and multiple sourcing connections.
Does such re-labelling help? Shakespeare, after all, aptly observed that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But with all due to respect to the bard, I disagree. We need that mindset change.
We need to let go of our old patterns and old models, and embrace new thinking. As practitioners, supply chains imprison our thinking, locking us into paradigms that constrain us. Supply webs open us up to new possibilities, new paradigms, and potentially new and different processes.
And with the challenges the world faces, those new possibilities, paradigms and processes have never been more needed. Disrupt—or be disrupted. Be an Uber, Airbnb, or Amazon…..and not a moribund traditionalist. n
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