The FINANCIAL — According to Wissol Petroleum Georgia representatives for the next year the number of API fuel consumers will raise to 50%. Wissol plans to add 18 new gas stations in 2010. According to Wissol Officials, for the year 2009 the amount of investments totaled to GEL 25 million.
Company officials say that API sales reached 35% of total sales of fuel at Wissol. The company management claims that the sales of Italian product API created for the European market significantly increased during last year.
“Wissol is the official Api distributor in Georgia. According to company management, the fuel's growth rate proves that customers prefer to fill their cars with high quality gas,” Wissol officials note.
API is one of the leading independent oil group in integrated downstream and power generation. API covers all the downstream activities from supplying, trading of crude oil, from refining to storage and distribution. The refinery of Falconara Marittima is one of the modern and technologically advanced refineries in the world. API has a leadership position along the Adriatic cost from Venice to Toronto.
From September 10 Italian fuel from API is available at Wissol branded service stations.
“Our customers' dependence on high quality gas is quite remarkeble. It’s better for them to pay a bit more, but have European-standard gas. High quality production protects the engine and prolongs the exploitation period,” Wissol Petroleum Georgia Board of Directors Chairman Simon Pkhakadze says.
“Company continues exclusively importing the Italian gas on the Georgian market. When we first thought about which country would be optimal for importing the highest quality gas, we thought of Italy,” company officials said.
Accordingly to Wissol Officials, the company started importing Italian quality fuel exclusively and this step appeared to be quite successful. The company's employees jumped to about 2,000 people.
Company Wissol management last week, introduced journalists with API sales dynamics. The press conference was attended by Italian Ambassador to Georgia Vittorio Sandalli. He talked about Georgia-Italian business relationships.
“We are going to continue importing high quality fuels to Georgia. One of the most successful Italian companies API is our partner. Wissol imports fuel from Italy to Georgia from the refinery of Falconara Marittima which is one of the modern and technologically advanced refineries in the world,” Sandalli says.
”It’s noticeable that for the last period the number of people aiming to study Italian language in Georgia has significantly increased. Georgian culture days have been organized in Florence, Italy, but mostly I would like to sort out the company Wissol which finances the cultural events organized by us,” Italian Ambassador explains.
Later on the press conference, Vittorio Sandalli revealed that the event was held on his birthday.
“It was a great opportunity for me to celebrate my birthday while talking about Wissol's success.” Sandalli said.
According to Levan Pkhakadze, Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors of Wissol Petroleum Georgia, the year 2009 was a quite hard year generally. He adds that economic crisis has bankrupted many companies and it’s a bit hard to speak about any success but despite of this fact, after summing up the results of 2009, it appeared that the company has arranged many successful projects.
“The company had quite big distributional network. We have managed to enlarge this network and added 10 more gas stations this year. For the end of the year we plan to add 3 more gas stations. The success that Italian product brought to the company is as well very important,” Levan Pkhakadze said.
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