Oil & Gas Middle East talks to AlMansoori CEO Nabil Alalawi, about the company’s 70% growth forecast, trading conditions in Iraq and looming Iranian sanctions
Nabil Alalawi is a proud man. As he talks in his company’s board room, outside hundreds of people are enjoying the AlMansoori Open Day, an annual geared around increasing the profile of the company across the entire Middle East region.
As the CEO of AlMansoori, Alalawi talks with a similar enthusiasm which is being shown by the African drummers entertaining the crowds flocking through the company’s gates. And it is clear to see that despite being in the business since the 1960s, none of his drive or passion has ebbed away.
AlMansoori has grown a significant amount over a short period, mainly through acquisitions. While days such as today show the positives attached to this, Alalawi reveals it does not come without challenges. “When you start expanding in double digits every year, we are talking about from 2009 to 2010 growing 77% – that is a huge. Then of course promoting from within and training from within just cannot fulfill the experience level we are looking for, so we have to hire from our competitors,” he sates.
“We are talking about over 20-25% of new recruits coming in from alien cultures and the challenge is to not lose the culture. The strength of AlMansoori is the special family culture where everybody feels they are part of a family, not just a number,” he adds.
Family events such as the open day go a long way to reinforce that structure but the company also has huge ambitions in the area. Alalawi says for them, 2010 is a big year. “We are very buoyant, 2010 is a year where a lot of our clients have been able to put their act back together after a bad 2009 for them, where a lot of their budgets have been frozen or shelved and now they have been given the green light to start drilling again.”
One area of the business which provokes particular enthusiasm from Alalawi is their new acquisition, VersaRig. “Every once in a while there comes somebody who comes up with a completely revolutionary idea. This idea of the VersaRig which we are introducing into the market here is very unique business. It was invented some time back by a person from Oklahoma, who had the idea but didn’t have the marketing capability or the ability to take it to the step of commercialism,” he comments.
“We were able to bring this idea with this gentleman and bring it to the world. We have the exclusive rights for the whole Eastern hemisphere and it is very revolutionary and is a complete new concept of how people service the oil wells. The reception from clients is – how did we not know about this earlier? It is such a simple idea, how come nobody has even talked about this? Always the revolutionary ideas are the simple ideas,” he adds.
AlMansoori has had considerable growth in a number of regions, but there is one country where the firm is still struggling to make a breakthrough.
“Iraq has unique circumstances that don’t encourage local companies like ourselves to be major players, as it stands today,” says Alalawi.
He adds that the multinational oil companies in Iraq have taken on the big oilfields in the south with very stringent conditions, meaning they must produce oil and generate cash flow very quickly.
This, he claims does not make for good conditions for his firm. “It all boils down to the comfort zone – they are comfortable with the companies they have been working with in the west, like Weatherford, Halliburton, Schlumberger, like Baker Hughes. They have been working with these companies in the North Sea, around the world and in the US. AlMansoori for them is a question mark, can they perform?”
Alalawi goes on to say that the situation in Iraq will improve with time, and at this point opportunities will become available to his group.
More pressing a matter for Alalawi is the situation between Iran and the US. “If super sanctions happen and Iran is put in a corner where it has to react and something happens and it becomes physical, it could be very damaging to the oil and gas business,” he warns.
“Or it could go the other way, where the super sanction happens and most of the European companies walk out of Iran, which would put the local companies in a very good business position,” he adds.
For now though AlMansoori will concentrate on coping with its huge growth spurt in the past couple of years. Alalawi explains: “We have more than seven or eight business units and every one of them has a general manager and they are all profit centres. They have to expand based on their capabilities, market requirements and financial capabilities. Some are growing double their size, some 35%, some 40%, for each business, the circumstances dictate how fast they can grow.”
As Alalawi rejoins his employees at the open day, it is clear the circumstances for this particular family, are pretty much perfect.
