On March 5^th, 2016, we had the privilege to visit one of the best and largest petroleum company in Lebanon, which is APEC, a family owned Arabian Petroleum Company located in Beddawi Area, In Tripoli, Lebanon.


The sight was beautiful, just across the sea, there were massive tanks in which they fill with fuel, some to sell to other companies while others to distribute among their eleven gas stations. Under the big umbrella of APEC, are 6 different companies, the base and most well-known company is Apec, which first started in the 1980’s, the company imports petroleum from foreign countries like, Italy and Romania, and makes it ready for use in Lebanon.

The second one in which many of the local people are familiar with is called Norgas, which is a company that provides gas for their casual everyday customers, usually for at home use. The third company is Petrogas which is a chain of gas stations owned by Apec, there is a total of 11 gas-station owned by Petrogas all over Lebanon. The next company is called Petragas and is the least well known company they own, they usually work “behind the scenes” it is a transportation company used to transport the fuel all over Lebanon. Ecogas is the fifth company which retails compressed and liquefied gas in Lebanon. And last but not least the latest addition to Apec was appgas, it started in 2015. Appgassells gas to large manufacturing companies.

 According to our guider on this tour, the accounting manager in Apec,the reason why these companies were separated into their own and not just merged into one company was to have a more organized flow of work, increase the cash flow, avoid Apec from competing against their own costumers, separate law issues that may arise in each company so that they wouldn’t affect all the companies as a whole and finally to “legally” avoid or decrease their taxes. Apec does not have an Iso certification or any other quality certifications, because according to the accounting manager, their product speaks for itself.

Due to Apec’s risky nature one of its main departments is an insurance department, they make sure they are insured from most if not all possible risks. Apec consists of an organogram starting from the CEO and ending with something called the employees affairs. Apec does not have a Human Resource Department nor a special auditing department. Although Apec does have an external andinternal auditors under the control department. They use the infamous software system, Dolphin to add and store data and keep track of everything going on in the company. In order to take full control of the process Apec does not believe in a “one-man show” and gives each person his responsibilities in order to track mistakes. All six companies share the same system of working and controlling. These six companies share the same Insurance, accounting, general management and IT departments. The purchase and sales departments are different for each company. Apec prefers to outsource many of their activities in order to save time and money.

There is no set mission and vision for Apec, but their goal is to offer clean fuel, at the right temperature and in the safest way possible. Apec has a very low number of employees and they try to leave it at minimum, because it is cheaper, simpler and easier to organize. The control department in Apec is one of the main departments to control and maintain the company. Apec’s competitive advantage is having a clean and quality petroleum at the right temperature.

Overall this visit to one of Lebanon’s largest and mostwell-known companies was very interesting and mind opening. The two hours spent hearing about how such a large and important company is managed were very helpful. I can honestly say that these two hours were equal to a semester worth of studying, and even then I would not have gained this knowledge, since it can only be obtained on the field rather than in books.

Oumaya Nasser

Apec’s Visit Report

Dr. Radwan Choughry

6^th March 2016