WIPL gunning for 35 per cent of domestic petroleum market
Published:Sunday | February 4, 2024 | 12:13 AMNeville Graham - Business Reporter
Petroleum bunkering and marketing company West Indies Petroleum Limited (WIPL) is gunning for 35 per cent of the domestic petroleum market, up 10 percentage points from its current 25 per cent.
CEO Charles Chambers is gung-ho about the projection, since his company has managed to quietly snag a quarter of the market, adding to its strong position in the ship and industry bunkering market.
He says, apart from supplying domestic petroleum products mostly to independent petroleum station dealers, WIPL has been selling petroleum through its own brand, Thrifty.
“On the north coast of Jamaica, there are 14 Thrifty gas stations. This came out of the fact that WIPL bought up the gas investments of our chairman, Gordon Shirley, and what came with it was the Thrifty brand,” Chambers disclosed.
At the National Environment and Planning Agency’s (NEPA’s) January 19 monthly meeting, planning permission was granted for a petroleum storage and dispensing facility at Lots 133 & 134 at Cardiff Hall, St Ann. Chambers says work will start in another two months, but that WIPL will not be operating the station.
Chambers says, in deciding to enter the domestic petroleum market, the company examined three modes of operation, namely DoDo (dealer-owned and dealer operated); CoCo (company-owned and company-operated); and CoDo (company-owned and dealer-operated). He says the DoDo mode has proven to be the most attractive.
“The effect is that we own the brand Thrifty, and we sell fuel to all of the Thrifty locations. With them being a Thrifty and having a contract in place gives us a certain guarantee in the supply arrangements,” Chambers said.
WIPL was incorporated in 2012, starting operations in 2013. Through a number of audacious moves, the company first acquired ship supply barges, then storage facilities in Jamaica and across the Caribbean. The company has a total of 750,000 barrels of storage capacity between two key facilities at Port Esquivel and Ocho Rios.
The company also has a strong relationship with transnational petroleum giant BP, and while Chambers is declining to give details, the amount of storage, along with supply arrangements, has put WIPL in a strong position as it goes for market share.
“We think that, because of the way we buy, our business model does allow us to be more competitive in the market. It allows us to have a competitive price, and we focus on the relationships as well,” Chamber said.
This, he added, has allowed the company to “almost triple” their “volume in the market over the last 12 months”.