Benefit of participation in the Oil and Gas Value Chain

2fumbe Ltd. 2Fumbe Ltd supplies assorted kitchen items for domestic and commercial use to restaurants, hotels, and homes. Today, we are participating in the Oil and Gas Value Chain because of the knowledge acquired through the Stanbic Business Incubator programme we attended in 2019/2020. The programme enabled us to identify market opportunities to expand into this sector.

What is your current level of participation in the Oil and Gas Value Chain?

 Our current participation is in the Value Chain is still a work in progress.

With the knowledge gained during the training, we now understand the sector’s upstream, midstream, and downstream operations. We plan to participate in the downstream segment to supply goods and services given our current resources and capability by:

• Providing standard kitchenware that hotels and restaurants will use within the oil districts.
• Offering catering services to feed the people who will be working in the refineries.
• Partnering with another company to start fabricating stainless steel commercial kitchens and related equipment.
• We are also profiling other potential partners, sensitizing them about the available opportunities, and exploring how we can benefit from them when we jointly offer services.

Could you share some of the opportunities for SMEs in the Oil and Gas Value Chain? 

There are several opportunities in this value chain.

For the broader SME sector, the opportunities include supplying goods and offering services such as Human Resources, Accounting, Legal, Environmental, and Health and Safety. Apart from providing kitchen equipment, we see an opportunity to diversify and deliver Information Technology (IT) services. We plan to provide operation management systems for inventory, communication, procurement and logistics. We have experience in using systems to deliver efficient and effective operations in day-to-day company activities.  

 How are you positioning the company to embrace the opportunities?

 We have taken several steps to prepare for these opportunities.

We are implementing the necessary policies and procedures to comply with the required international standards to get essential certifications this year. Today, we take records of all our operations and have the health and safety requirements in place. We registered with the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, and our information is shortlisted on the National Suppliers Database.

 What can be done to increase SMEs’ participation in the Oil and Gas Value Chain? 

SMEs need information and financial support to increase their participation.

At the moment, we get most of the information from third parties, and sometimes it is not credible. It would be good if the mandated organizations like the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) directly engage with SMEs to share sector updates. I also wish that we had more forums to dialogue as stakeholders, especially the private and government sectors. This information is critical for SMEs to prepare and plan resources for future activities.

Although regulations and infrastructure are available, SMEs still need financial support to supply goods and services to the Oil and Gas Value Chain. Through the Stanbic Business Incubator, SMEs have been trained on investment readiness and how to attract finance from financial institutions. However, we do not know whether our local banks can support us to execute the anticipated enormous contracts. When issues on information and finance are addressed, we shall see increased SMEs’ participation in the Oil and Gas Value Chain.