IPAC last week announced its entry into the Asia, Middle East and Africa markets, doing business from an office and warehousing in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
International Petroleum Products and Additives Co. is a lubricant and fuel additive and component manufacturing and sales company based in Dublin, Calif. It manufactures in Illinois, Louisiana, Texas and California.
We have analyzed this market for many years and with the ever-growing world demand for automotive, industrial and marine lubricants, this region has shown a steep growth for lubricant additives, said IPAC CEO Brian Cereghino. Entering this marketplace made perfect sense and is the next step in our strategic plan to solidify our position as a long-term additive source for customers internationally.
Cereghino visited the Dubai area in October 2009 to interview people for sales positions, who came on board shortly after November 2009. We spent the better part of the remainder of 2009 and the early part of 2010 doing the legal papers and agreements, and establishing warehousing, he told Lube Report. Contract warehousing is similar to what competitors are doing out there to serve that region.
Within the span of a few months, IPAC made its presence felt in the Middle East and Egypt, with prime companies already on IPACs list of valued customers, said Dippu M.G. Nair, co-manager of the Dubai office with Naren Sachanandani.
We have much better, equal footing in the Middle East because none of us [additive suppliers] have manufacturing in the region, Cereghino explained. Everything comes from Singapore, Europe or the States. From that aspect, we can compete more favorably against other competitors in the Middle East. For years weve been selling in the Far East, mainly in the Vietnam area and down the peninsula, through Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
In the Middle East, Asia and Africa markets, IPAC focuses primarily on additives for the automotive industry, both diesel and gasoline, he observed. That and automotive gear and transmission are the primary areas that we focus on.
He noted that as demand is growing, so is the push to modernize some of the fluids in the Asia, Middle East and Africa markets. They have traditionally been much lower tiered API grades, some of which are obsolete, not even recognized by the API. So when we talk with some of the multi-nationals over there, theyre moving, especially in the African markets, to upgrade some of the offerings that they have, Cereghino added.