Neutral Fuels, a Dubai-based company that recycles used cooking oil into biodiesel, is expanding its operations to Australia, and plans to break into further markets next year.
The company feeds its biodiesel plants with oil used by McDonalds, and returns it as fuel for the fast-food chain's truck fleet. After a first plant was launched in Dubai last year, Neutral Fuels has agreed to extent the partnership with the restaurant to the Australian state of Victoria, where it has built a similar plant near Melbourne.
"We're working with McDonalds on the biodiesel programme and they've asked us to do Melbourne as their next step," said Karl Feilder, Neutral Fuels' chief executive.
So far, the Melbourne plant processes spent oil from over 100 outlets. McDonalds remaining 105 restaurants in Victoria will follow suit early next year. The fast food retailer wants all of the around 1,000 restaurants in Australia to be integrated into the programme by the end of 2013.
Neutral Fuels expansion into Australia was assisted by Victoria's government, which keeps an office in Dubai to attract investment into the state.
McDonalds and Neutral Fuels want to extend the biodiesel programme to other countries in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Mr Feilder says he is in discussion with four governments in those regions, and hopes to set up the programme in two more countries next year.
The Dubai biodiesel plant, set up in August last year, has recently had its capacity doubled to 1.5 million litres a year as the partnership picked up steam in the UAE. The Melbourne plant has an initial capacity of 1.5m litres per year, which will be upgraded to 6m litres as more restaurants are tapped.
In the UAE, McDonalds benefitted from a supply of diesel that is cheaper even than the subsidised fossil fuel sold at the pump. In Australia, where fuel is not subsidised, the savings will be even greater.
"Economically it works well for all parties concerned. It shows that being green doesn't cost the earth," said Mr Feilder.
After the needs of McDonald's truck fleet are met, Neutral Fuels is free to sell surplus biodiesel to other buyers, which it has already started doing in the UAE.
The fuel provider is a subsidiary of the Neutral Group, which advises companies on energy efficiency.
[ fneuhof@thenational.ae ]
Confirmed bouts (more to be added)
Cory Sandhagen v Umar Nurmagomedov
Nick Diaz v Vicente Luque
Michael Chiesa v Tony Ferguson
Deiveson Figueiredo v Marlon Vera
Mackenzie Dern v Loopy Godinez
Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.
Company Profile
Company name: Cargoz
Date started: January 2022
Founders: Premlal Pullisserry and Lijo Antony
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 30
Investment stage: Seed
How to get there
Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies directly to Hanoi, Vietnam, with fares starting from around Dh2,725 return, while Etihad (www.etihad.com) fares cost about Dh2,213 return with a stop. Chuong is 25 kilometres south of Hanoi.
Pearls on a Branch: Oral Tales
Najlaa Khoury, Archipelago Books
Scotland's team:
15-Sean Maitland, 14-Darcy Graham, 13-Nick Grigg, 12-Sam Johnson, 11-Byron McGuigan, 10-Finn Russell, 9-Ali Price, 8-Magnus Bradbury, 7-Hamish Watson, 6-Sam Skinner, 5-Grant Gilchrist, 4-Ben Toolis, 3-Willem Nel, 2-Stuart McInally (captain), 1-Allan Dell
Replacements: 16-Fraser Brown, 17-Gordon Reid, 18-Simon Berghan, 19-Jonny Gray, 20-Josh Strauss, 21-Greig Laidlaw, 22-Adam Hastings, 23-Chris Harris
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara