Emirates National Oil Company Ltd (ENOC) has launched a joint venture with the government of Djibouti for bottling and distributing liquid petroleum gas (LPG) across the East African country. ENOC Djibouti becomes the group’s 24th company and was set up in response to the country’s LPG market conditions. The new company will drastically reduce the retail cost per cylinder, making the product accessible to the bulk of Djibouti’s 600,000 population. The subsidiary will initially use standard 12km cylinders but will soon launch a market-specific product to further bring down end-consumer costs achieving greater economies of scale in Djibouti’s 36,000 annual LPG cylinder market.
The ENOC Group, which is currently evaluating plans to introduce other petroleum products into Djibouti and its bordering countries, recently held talks in Dubai with the aim of supplying Djibouti and Ethiopia with ENOC petroleum products and of setting up of a Djibouti-wide retail network based on ENOC specifications and design.