Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) recorded the lowest operating costs in years with reduction of up to 5% in the year 2013 alone. This has better positioned the company to compete with the GCC peers, according to a top official at the Bapco board.
“The dawn of the year 2014 will see the opening of the three more refineries in the Gulf means more competition and pressure on sales of petroleum products across the board,” Bapco Board Chairman, Adel Khalil Almoayyed o the sidelines of the opening of the Waste Water Treatment Plant at the Refinery told The24X7News.
In terms of crude put through, the Chairman said it was on the right target in 2013 despite growing pressures from opening of new refineries in the region. “We have managed to focus on the core activities by slashing costs in non business activities helping to reduce the operating costs, a basic ingredient to be competitive in the highly saturated market,” the Bapco Chairman added.
“We have been constantly reviewing and evaluating the various aspects of the refinery modernisation project and it seems that the project will be ready for tenders by June 2014,” he said.
“We have been talking to engineering companies and consultants to discuss all aspects of refinery modernisation and hope the spade work will be ready by mid of next year,” he added.
The Chairman earlier said that the board had reviewed plans and progress of Bapco Modernization Project, Upstream exploration programmes, Productivity Improvement Programme and the current initiatives related to pilot project for use of Solar Energy being implemented under the auspices of National Oil Gas Authority.”
The Chairman said that given the competition in the market, Bapco would also focus on enhancing the sales of the lube based products by enhancing its market share.
“Bapco is a quality conscious organisation and we will maintain highest levels of quality which will continue to help increase in sales of our products,” he said.