Following recent contractual discussions, Shell Aviation have extended their existing jet fuel supply position with the Emirates Group and effectively increased their current share of the airlines volumes at its Dubai hub.

Salah Galadari, Shell Aviation Marketing Manager for the MESA [Middle East and South Asia] Cluster, said, "We are delighted to have concluded this deal. We regularly rank our preferred customers in Aviation and Emirates consistently figures in the top quartile of customers with whom we wish to grow.

"This deal is therefore totally in line with our overall Sales strategy of active portfolio management and of seeking selective growth with customers whom, we believe, will be long-term winners in a notoriously low profit industry sector.

"Emirates underlined it own growth ambitions by announcing details of a combined US $15 billion aircraft order at last November's Dubai Airshow and Shell Aviation is keen to further strengthen its long-term partnership with Emirates to ensure that we can share in and contribute towards that growth," said Salah.

"Project Al-Salam went live across Dubai and Oman on 1st July, 2002. More than 150 staff across the UAE and Oman are now using SAP to conduct their business," reports Anthony de Watteville, SAP Project Manager.

"This is the culmination of intensive project activity over the last few months which resulted in many late nights and working weekends for staff engaged in such activities as User Acceptance Testing, SAP Training, Data Loading and Live Simulations.

"At the time of writing this, the SAP system has been in use for just one day so it is too early to assess how smoothly it has all gone in, although it is a case of 'So far, so good'.

"There will, inevitably, be some teething problems but we are confident that having the full project team, including consultants, on the ground will enable any problems that do arise to be resolved quickly," he concludes.

In June, Captain John Bateman, Ship Quality Assurance and Small Ships and Barges Focal Point for Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Ltd [STASCO], came to Dubai from London to make a presentation to the traders and operators in Shell International Trading Middle East Ltd [SITME].

The subject of Captain Bateman's presentation was 'Ship Quality Assurance and Changes to the Shell SAFE [Ship Acceptability for Employment] System'.

"Shell has very stringent quality standards for the use and acceptability of all vessels whenever they are used to carry Shell products or whenever they are loaded at a Shell terminal," Captain Bateman explained.

"My presentation included changes to the processes for ship clearance and, in my role as Small Ships and Barges Focal Point, I made a short presentation to Shell Marine Products on the CoBRA [Coastal Barge Risk Assessment] system," he said.

Ashley Buhl, Shell Dubai's Marine Adviser, commented after the presentation, "As the local Focal Point for SAFE Small Ships and Barges Inspection in the Middle East and East Africa, I work closely with John's team in London.

"The standard of vessels in this region varies considerably and there are a lot of very poor quality and substandard vessels plying the local waters. John's presentation was very useful and helpful in bringing us up to date on the latest developments and safeguards to protect the environment of this region," he concluded.

"Under the Soroosh and Nowrooz buy-back project, Shell has undertaken to train the personnel of the client, the National Iranian Oil Company [NIOC], to operate and maintain the permanent facilities," reports Paul Reed, Senior Operations, Skills and Standards Advisor, from Dubai-based Shell Iran Offshore Ltd.

"This broad remit includes sea survival and helicopter escape training to ensure that offshore personnel and visitors comply with Shell's policy for travel offshore.

"Research early on in the project revealed that this training had not been demanded in Iran before and was not available in-country. Thus the options were either to send personnel abroad or to support the development of an in-country capability. Overseas training would have been expensive and difficult to arrange, whereas developing an Iranian capability makes both commercial sense and increases Iranian companies' competencies.

"Following visits to various training suppliers in 2001, the National Iranian Tanker Company [NITC] and a private company, Danesh Delvar, expressed interest in developing and delivering the offshore survival and helicopter underwater escape training [HUET] courses respectively. Both operate at Mahmoud Abad on the Caspian coast, where NITC has a centre for the training of its marine personnel.

"NITC worked with Shell to develop the offshore survival, fire fighting, first aid and survival craft training. Danesh Delvar took on the development of the HUET course - the company's General Manager having overseas experience in this specialised area.

"Following syllabus development for the two courses, preparations for the practical training were started. For the HUET training, this involved convincing a local swimming pool owner that suspending a HUET capsule from the roof of his pool would not result in hydraulic oil leaking into the water or, worse still, cause structural collapse of the roof.

"The first courses were delivered in January 2002 and the training is now regularly scheduled to ensure that all of the anticipated 250 Soroosh and Nowrooz Project personnel can be trained during 2002-2003.

"This training was initiated primarily to safeguard the lives of personnel - a key principle. Developing and delivering the training in Iran benefits the community by making use of local companies - which also appreciate the transfer of technology. There was significant stakeholder engagement as NIOC, Shell's client and the major stakeholder, was involved at every step of the process.

A noticeable bonus of this involvement has been the increase in safety awareness amongst Iranian personnel and management - to the extent that NIOC has begun similar training for other areas of its business.

"Finally, delivering the training in Iran results in a significant saving in cost; savings which can be used to ensure training in other areas," Paul concludes.

Earlier this summer, a 'Living in the market' exercise was held in the UAE with the aim of distributing and branding retailers' outlets with the new Shell Helix branded point-of-sale material and give-aways. The exercise was spread over four days: one day each in Dubai and Sharjah and two days in Abu Dhabi.

As for the previous exercise carried out for Shell's Rimula and Rotella oil products earlier this year, Shell teams left Shell Dubai's office in the morning and put in the four hot days' work, branding and talking and interacting with customers at retail outlets.

Marwan Riad Ramadan, Sales Manager, Consumer Motorist, SMME, said, "The most significant aspect of our 'Living in the market' exercise this time round was the participation of so many new faces. Apart from the Sales and Marketing teams, we also had people from Shell Dubai's Finance and HR departments join us to increase their customer focus and to give them the opportunity to meet face to face with customers.

"This time around we also had the participation of our colleagues from Shell Oman Marketing, who indicated to us that their involvement in these exercises has helped them carry out such exercises in Oman.

"Another first was the active participation of staff from our sole distributors in Abu Dhabi, Al Jaber Corporation. In fact, they were so appreciative of the exercise that they commended the effort in a letter addressed to me and asked me to pass on their appreciation to all those concerned," said Marwan.

The teams managed to brand more than 130 shops in the UAE, which constitutes more than 60 per cent of the prime retail shops which Shell does business with in the region, and feedback was very positive from members of the team and from the distributors and retailers themselves.