187. Billionaire Gandur’s Oryx Plans 500 Fuel Stations in Africa
2017-03-21 12:51:32.61 GMT
By Andy Hoffman and Dylan Griffiths
(Bloomberg) -- Oryx Energies plans to add 500 retail fuel-
service stations in Africa over the next five years to profit
from rising demand for diesel and gasoline, billionaire chairman
and founder Jean Claude Gandur said.
The company will invest $60 million to $80 million
refurbishing about 100 stations a year under the Oryx brand,
Gandur said in an interview at the Africa CEO Forum in Geneva
this week. It will lease the sites from independent landowners
and operators.
While Gandur has invested in Africa for 30 years, he said
Oryx is playing catch-up with oil traders with larger service-
station networks. Puma Energy, whose biggest shareholder is
trading house Trafigura Group, has more than 700 retail sites
across the continent compared with Oryx’s 150 in countries from
Tanzania to Benin.
“It grows fast,” said Gandur, who sold his oil-trading and
production company Addax Petroleum Corp. to China Petroleum &
Chemical Corp. in 2009 for C$8.3 billion ($6.2 billion). “We let
the people who have the land come to us. We advertise that we
are interested and then we choose and negotiate.”
Oryx leases the service stations for a period of about 15
years and pays rent as well as a percentage of sales to the
owners. The majority of financing will come from the company’s
own funds, with the rest coming from local banks.
Trader Dominance
Trading houses are acquiring fuel stations across Africa
and other developing countries as major oil producers including
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc divest.
Vitol Group, the biggest independent oil trader, has a joint
venture with Helios Investment Partners LLP that paid $1 billion
for control of Shell’s African fuel and retail stations.
French-born, Swiss-educated Gandur worked at Philipp
Brothers in Zug, Switzerland, before setting up Addax & Oryx
Group Ltd. in 1987, with a focus on energy and Africa. “I
started investments in Africa well before the other trading
companies,” said the entrepreneur, 68. “My model is cheaper but
takes a longer time to put together.”
Oryx is seeking to control at least 10 percent of the
retail fuel market in every country where it operates, according
to Gandur.
In addition to its growing retail network, Oryx controls
several oil-product storage sites across the continent. It has
doubled storage capacity for liquid petroleum gas in Africa as
the fuel’s increasing popularity for cooking spurs consumption,
he said.
Gandur sees the price of oil going up over the next five
years as global demand strengthens and OPEC’s output cuts
counter higher U.S. production. “I am convinced oil will be
closer to $100 a barrel than $50,” he said. “Like it or not, oil
will go up.”
188. By Giles Broom
(Bloomberg) -- IMF Director for Africa Abebe Selassie
comments at Africa CEO Forum conference opening plenary
in
Geneva.
* Good governance is Africa’s “elephant in the room,”
investor Mo Ibrahim says
* Africa needs more transparency, democracy, no
corruption,
billionaire Naguib Sawiris, founder of Orascom Telecom, says
on same panel
* African Development Bank boosting agriculture support by
400% to $24b over 10 yrs, Pierre Guislain, VP for private
sector, infrastructure and industrialization says
* Africa’s most important industry is still agriculture:
Ibrahim
For Related News and Information:
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--With assistance from Dylan Griffiths.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Giles Broom in Geneva at gbroom@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net
Albertina Torsoli, Thomas Mulier