Founded a quarter of a decade ago, A A Rano Limited has focused on efficient cost management to stay competitive in Nigeria’s petroleum products marketing and retailing space that has been suffering from thin margins due to the Federal Government capped pump price.
L-R: Ghali Mustapha, general manager (LPG) AA Rano Nig. Ltd.; Farouk Idris, general manager engineering AA Rano Ltd.; Mumuni Dagazau, chief operating officer, AA Rano Ltd; Zainab Ndana, executive assistant to the general managing director, AA Rano Ltd, and Samuel Peppiatt of Trafigura PTE Ltd, at the Oil Trading & Logistics (OTL) 2019 Africa Downstream Week.
The Kano-based major oil marketer has also embarked on a new five-year wave of expansionary strategy, which partly informed its first appearance at the Oil Trading and Logistics (OTL) Africa Downstream Expo 2019. From petroleum products marketing and distribution, the company has evolved into a full stream oil and gas company. This means it plays across the oil and gas value chain – upstream, mid-stream and downstream. The company owns a 56 million-litres tank in Lagos and lifts 45, 000 barrels of per day of crude oil under the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s Direct Sale – Direct Purchase (DSDP) scheme.
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“We struggle like every other company in the downstream oil and gas sector because the margins are thin. This is why we have aggressively pursued the goal of becoming a full stream company so that we can efficiently contain costs,” Mumuni Dagazau, chief operating officer of the company told BusinessDay on the side-lines of the OTL.
Dagazau said that plans are already in top gear to build a retail petroleum products service station in Lagos. “We have concluded plans and talked with various stakeholders to acquire and open more outlets in the Lagos area before the end of this year.”
A A Rano is poised to take total control of the entire value chain from production to end user because the company now has put in place the necessary assets needed to run production operations. This, the COO maintained, will be achievable as the company will do things differently for the satisfaction of customers.
In line with its new five-year strategy, the company has introduced a new logo meant to increase and sustain the confidence reposed on it by various stakeholders. This comes across through constant innovation.
A member of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), the company has grown from renting retail outlets to owning 115 retail outlets in 25 years; and has 600 trucks to convey products with. It has 20, 000 metric tonnes capacity of liquefied national gas (LPG) plant currently under construction in Lagos. Its subsidiaries include: Rano Petrotrade limited, Ranogaz Limited, A A Rano Transport Limited and Rano Lubricants Limited.
