Creating Marketing Space in the Middle East, North Africa and the Caspian

By

 D. J. Kataky¹

(1) Indian Oil Corporation Limited, New Delhi, India

 The oil scenario in the Middle East (Egypt), North Africa and the Caspian is very promising. For the global oil industry, the focus will be on capital discipline, a reasonable ROCE, production targets, and the perception of intensifying acquisition risks. The Middle East offers low risk and long term support for the oil industry. For example Egypt and Libya form the backbone to growth, particularly for natural gas, and also for liquids. As far as opportunities are concerned, there are massive opportunities in deep water, heavy oil, LNG, piped gas and Caspian Oil.

Marketing prospects in the changing world requires creating new marketing space, which in turn demands for a different pattern of strategic thinking. Although the marketing pressures in various industries are never precisely the same, the competitive process works similarly enough to see a common analytical framework in the intensity of competitive forces. Developing sound marketing strategy will be a very big challenge for all oil companies operating in the Middle East (Egypt), North Africa and the Caspian region. Crafting of strategies is an analysis driven exercise, not a task where management can get by with opinions, and creative thinking. Analytical techniques like that of competitive strength assessment will help companies in finding out whether the company’s prices and costs competitive. Finally in order to survive in the future, the oil companies have to adopt certain strategies to remain competitive and successful.