Browsing articles from "April, 2013"

Strategic Objectives

Apr 16, 2013   //   by Administrator   //   Procedures  //  Comments Off on Strategic Objectives

We believe that it is possible to do this business and not fail most of the time – not even part of the time. I think that is somewhat a rare belief. Almost nobody has had any success in this business. Our vision was to create a clear pathway, eliminate the pain and serve people well to get to the success they wanted.

When you think about it, to have success in the oil business everybody involved has to agree with everything and then everybody has to do what they agreed to do, regardless of their capabilities. And then introduce the idea that your minimum buyer requires $100 million entry fee and you have an idea of the difficulty.
You would think that notion would narrow the field and that may be the case most of the time. But it pays to look at it differently.

If you make the deal so simple that everybody can agree and perform, then the deal can get accomplished with very little competency.

Take the business that we are in. What the seller wants is to get paid and what the buyer wants is to get the cargo delivered. So what if we just say, the seller delivers and the buyer pays, simple.
Now, how can we get as close to that as possible? If everybody had 100% trust we could just go ahead and do it that way. But there are other people involved that say no. So how can we get as close to that as possible?
How about this? The seller proves they have the authority to sell (ATS), the buyer proves (POF = MT799) they have the ability to pay. Then the seller delivers and then the buyer tests (Q&Q) the product, and when satisfied pays (MT103).

Now to make sure there is nothing that can go wrong we have to get our nose in each part and make sure there is no opportunity for anything to go wrong. We work on foresight and problem solving before any problem pops up. Then we install procedures that define actions that complete each task without glitches.

We want to keep this just as simple as is possible and then everybody involved experiences success.

Then because we have had success we can simplify further.

Some of this came from our coordinator, and this is why it is important to have really good teams.
He convinced the NNPC people at the Bonny Terminal that we could go ahead with just a proof of funds and then deliver and then the buyer would pay.

Not every seller can do this. Why? Because their teams are not good enough at what they do.

This would not work for very long if the mandates or agents kept introducing buyers that could not pay.
Case in point; not too long ago we were introduced to a new seller. In the process of our DD we found that the seller could deliver and had done so 12 times, but without having a single buyer pay. Obviously they were doing something very wrong costing them millions of dollars. They were suffering from a kind of insanity of hope. “Stop doing what you are doing”, was the answer. “Do things differently.”

Now when people come in the door they can take the easy path and have success. There are still holdouts – those that do not trust and put up barriers that make it hard for a seller. A typical barrier is a performance bond. It is like saying to a seller, “We do not trust you to deliver.” And then the seller’s bank has to make it hard on the buyer. The harder it becomes the harder it is to close. The more complicated the procedure the more that can go wrong somewhere in the deal. You really do not want your banks to keep deals from closing.

It is completely possible to walk a real seller and a real buyer into a procedure that will never close. You may not even know that it will not close until it is too late. So if you can keep it simple the lack of knowledge and experience by anybody involved has a much harder time to get in the way.

We respect the human factor in transactions. We do not expect the contract to somehow close the deal itself.
We put in the effort to push past the problems by keeping the focus on the end result while dealing with the challenges.

One of the ways we challenge the statuesque is by is by discovering where the impediments to a transaction are and then change the situation to provide an elegant and simple solution to the problem. We really try hard to give advise that will benefit people in the business.

We want to do business with people that believe what we believe. We believe it is possible to succeed and as a result we are proving to others that they too can succeed. We just happen to be in a rather opaque marketplace and are providing the simple transparent path through our private offerings. The necessity for privacy causes the opacity but we provide private answers to private problems. Only the people involved are able to see clearly. The public is still left in the dark about most of this business and that is the way it has to remain.

We want to work with people that are willing to be part of the solution. We don’t want to work with people that do not want to trust and will insist on putting up all kinds of barriers to succeeding.

I talk to people that believe that Nigeria is having a hard time making sales. That is just not the case. If you were a buyer that has had success are you going to go around creating more competition for yourself? I don’t think so. I have seen the lifting schedules – 28 shipments in 15 days – Nigeria is not having a problem selling oil. There is no reason to have to require a performance bond. Really now, sellers want to consistently deliver. Why would they not?

We want to help buyers to take a different path than the one we have forged through experience. Let us show you how to avoid our bad experiences. Let us advise you to stay away from certain things that will kill a deal.

Because our marketplace is difficult the challenges in our marketplace are actually opportunities for profit. The kind of profit that others will rarely experience. That is perhaps the biggest reason to do this business. If Nigerian Oil Services is the only open door buyers can find – well, you can figure it out.

Our goal for the next 12 months is 10 billion in gross trading volume which I believe is a conservative estimate considering what will happen when others see our success and want to share in it.

Our team is seasoned, experienced, influential, conscientious, innovative and prophetic.
Come join us and see how you can succeed.

Jeff Scott – CFO Google
Nigerian Oil Services LLC (USA)