Sudanese oil company breaks in to Ethiopian market

By Tesfa-alem Tekle

January 6, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — A Sudan based petroleum company has penetrated to Ethiopian oil market to start operation on lubricants, fuel distribution and to provide related service in the country

Wadi Alsundus Petroleum Co, oil products distributor, is the second Sudanese oil company to operate in Ethiopia will begin functioning by the end of January, sources from the company said.

It exports gasoline to Ethiopia on behalf of Sudan government.

Wadi Alsundus has already opened branch office in the Ethiopian capital and built two oil-pumping stations in the outskirts of Addis Ababa at Mojo and Sebeta with each having an installed capacity of 160,000 liters.

The already built two oil-pumping stations are set to operate by the end of January.

The introduction of the Sudanese oil company will raise the total number of functioning oil companies in Ethiopia to seven.

The Ethiopian oil market, which had for years been dominated by foreign based Total, Mobil, Agip, Shell, in recent years been penetrated by the Kenyan Kobil, the Sudanese Nile oil, the Libyan Oilibya and now for the second time by another Sudanese oil company, Wadi Alsundus.

All the earliest dominant oil companies Agip, Mobil, and shell are actually No more in the market of the nation except for total.

The Sudanese oil company, Wadi Alsundus, has also planned to build 18 additional fuel stations in different regions of the nation to provide multi-regional distribution operation.

When the oil company goes into full operation it will provide direct supply to big enterprises that demand large volume of heavy and light fuels.

In November 2008, the Libyan petroleum dealer Oilibya bought the retailed business of Netherlands based Dutch shell, a shell company that operated in Ethiopian for 60 years and had built 200 retail service stations.

(ST)