UAE Oil Conglomerate Deploys Oracle Upgrade Throughout the Group

Dubai, UAE, April 18, 2006. Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), the UAE's national oil conglomerate, has completed an extensive deployment of Oracle E-Business Suite modules, to improve business efficiency through automation of several critical business processes, including oil inventory management and costing, order management, and distribution. The enterprise resource planning (ERP) upgrade is another step in ENOC's long-term strategy to replace in-house developed applications for its core business processes with Oracle solutions. 

"ENOC is a massive organization our revenues run into billions of dollars, there are more than 30 companies under its portfolio, and we employ more than 4,000 staff in multiple locations across the UAE, Europe, and Central Asia," said Hussain Sultan, Group Chief Executive and Board Member, ENOC. "Our Oracle-based IT infrastructure is extensive and covers the whole business group, providing business system and data management round-the-clock to support key business units."

As the oil conglomerate has developed from a regional organization into a worldwide leader in the energy sector, it has faced business challenges in IT scalability and consolidation. With expansion into new territories, ENOC sought an IT enterprise infrastructure that would enable more rapid growth in diverse and fragmented information environments. The Oracle Process Manufacturing provides ENOC with a standard system to manage its various terminal operations based in different locations across the globe. Data capture is automated, transactions are not duplicated, and ENOC's oil inventory is managed through a stringent set of quality and operational parameters. 

"We chose Oracle as our core ERP platform several years back, and have been continuously upgrading the system to cover additional business areas. To date, we have deployed a full suite of Oracle Financials, Oracle Property Management, Oracle Human Resources Management System, and Oracle Payroll modules, so it made both financial and IT sense to roll out further additions and add to what is already a very scalable and functional system," said Sultan.

Operating over a number of different countries, ENOC has used Oracle solutions to overcome a number of business issues. ENOC trades in 15 currencies, and required applications that are able to capture information on a constant basis to deal with fluctuating exchange rates and provide management with a clear understanding of the business' revenues and cost side of the business. Oracle Financials enhance the clarity and control of transaction processing, provide complete understanding of costs and revenue to analyze, manage and improve financial profitability, and enable the setting up of financial systems for new businesses with minimal effort and costs.

"Establishing new operational entities often is a long-winded process, but our Oracle E-Business Suite has reduced time delays and expenditures. Oracle Financials also enables ENOC to comply with governmental regulations and reporting requirements on financial transactions, meaning that the time taken to deploy our staff and set up new offices is minimal," added Sultan.

Currently, ENOC's in-house IT provider Global Technology Services has consolidated more than ten disparate systems onto the group's Oracle E-Business Suite. With access provided by local and wide area network connectivity and a dedicated VPN connection, the Oracle solution has resulted in a lower cost of ownership with enhanced operational efficiency.  

Commenting on the upgrade, Husam Dajani, Oracle Vice President, Middle East and Africa, said: "Fuelled by high oil prices, Middle East energy companies have experienced an economic boom over the past few years and are shifting their resources to expansion overseas. Geographic expansion provides companies like ENOC with new opportunities, but they also have to bear in mind the regulatory and financial hurdles of such a move. Oracle E-Business Suite allows them to spread rapidly, and consequently take advantage of new markets such as in Central Asia on a first-mover basis."

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Aly Rifaah                                                                             
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© Press Release 2006