NASSAU, BAHAMAS – At a recent annual general meeting for ordinary shareholders, held under the theme “Embracing Change”, executives from FOCOL Holdings Limited said that the company is poised to meet changes occurring in the energy sector while evolving to meet global advancements in climate change.
According to Anthony Robinson, FOCOL President and CEO, the company has been deliberate with investments to prepare the organization for expected changes in industry and consumer demands.
FOCOL has optimized its fuel logistics and supporting infrastructure to include birthing enhancements and storage tank expansion.
Its shipping fleet has been retooled with larger oceangoing vessels like the recently acquired Sun Gas, a 1 million-gallon propane ship and Brad Sun, a 2.2 million-gallon marine tanker. The development of new concepts for service stations will coincide with new trends in convenience retailing while company-wide staff training and career development will strengthen organizational capacity.
Mr. Robinson noted that substantial investments in computer enterprise and automation systems over the past two years were targeted to meet current demand and prepare FOCOL for expected technological advancement expected to occur in the energy sector over the next two decades. All transactions at FOCOL are now stored in a cloud so that the production chain—the terminals, trucks, ships and main office—has access to relevant information to aid the processing of orders, inventory management control and easy recovery of delivery information, among other benefits.
“The new system has made the overall management of the business more real-time, more accurate and much more efficient. And that has provided a baseline for us to really embrace the digital changes occurring globally. As our ships can go global, so can our systems,” said Dexter Adderley, Managing Director, Sun Oil Limited, a subsidiary of FOCOL.
“We are pleased to say that we have a very robust system that is bulletproof to the vulnerabilities of information security. We think that is one of the pillars that we have strategically developed to help us embrace the change of the energy industry,” he added.
FOCOL believes that one change transforming the industry is the rise of international treaties aimed at lowering global carbon footprint. Though such efforts primarily seek to advance the role of renewables, expansion in global energy demand is projected to outpace that of renewables, therefore supporting an increase in demand for petroleum products well into the future.
“While the rate of evolution toward this distant, low-carbon future is uncertain, FOCOL’s commitment to participating in that future is unwavering,” said Mr. Robinson, adding that the company is not yet ready to reveal its plans in that regard.
Mr. Robinson assured shareholders that all of these innovations—technical or otherwise—will yield financial benefits in fiscal year 2020 and beyond.
He added: “FOCOL’s success over the past 28 years is founded on its ability to leverage the opportunities brought about by change. It is indeed this ability that has advanced FOCOL from a privately-held trucking company to a multimillion dollar publicly-traded energy company that it is today.
“Embracing change has brought us to where we are. And as the world around us evolves, it is our spirit of embracing change that will sustain the company in the future. I am convinced that our energy future is bright and ripe with opportunity.”
Underscoring his colleagues, Sir Franklyn Wilson, FOCOL Chairman noted the company’s success: “This is truly an exceptional company in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Few companies in the country have a large number of shareholders like we do. This company is also remarkably placed for change; this isn’t just talk. There is tremendous capacity of logistics, of technology, of human relations skills, of connectedness to this world and relationships.”
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