(2 Feb 2020) LEAD IN: Car drivers in Dubai may never need to set foot in a petrol station again.
Mobile petrol trucks are transforming the way people refuel their cars.
STORY-LINE:
In a city where almost anything can be delivered to one's doorstep, from groceries to clean laundry, Dubai's residents can now have fuel brought to their cars, with just a click of a button.
Cafu, is the brainchild of Rashid al-Ghurair, who hopes the service will help save people time.
Requests for the on-demand, 24-hour car refuelling service, are made through a phone app.
It offers customers convenience and helps them circumvent a long wait outside the gas station.
"I cant be bothered to wait in line at the gas station, especially during rush hour, it's a long line," says Hanadi Merchant-Habib, one of Cafu's earliest customers.
Dubai is known for its traffic jams, especially during the rush hour.
Stretched over an area of over 4,000 square kilometres, is the most populated emirate in the UAE.
There are more than 150 gas stations in Dubai, but many people complain they have to make a detour to refuel.
The idea for Cafu sprung up a few years ago when al-Ghurair felt that technology had "taken over almost everybody's life," he says.
"I was thinking how can I connect this to my own business, my own industry," says al-Ghurair.
To get the service provided by Cafu, customers do not even have to leave the house.
Hanadi sits at her home as a truck pulls up outside and begins refuelling it.
All customers need to do is schedule in advance, keep the gas tank open and make a payment online.
Cafu customers either pay 18 Emirati dirhams ($5) for the service on top of the market price per litre or have the option of paying 26 dirhams ($7) a month for limitless use of the service.
In 2017, the UAE deregulated fuel prices and introduced a policy tied to global prices and Cafu's pricing is the same as the monthly price of petrol in Dubai.
Its trucks currently operate in Dubai, Sharjah, and Ajman.
Cafu also offers diesel refuelling to companies with a large fleet of cars or equipment.
"I definitely see this as the future, especially in metropolitans around the world where land is becoming scarce and I see gas stations cannot survive in those metropolitans," al-Ghurair says.
A few months after Cafu cars took to the streets, one of the UAE's largest oil companies took notice.
The Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), introduced a fuel delivery service called Enoc Link.
The company's 30 trucks operate mainly in Dubai, Sharjah, and Ajman.
Enoc link is also an app-based platform with two divisions, one delivering petrol to individual customers and a commercial division delivering diesel to big companies and businesses.
"We believe that competition is healthy in the market and especially a market like Dubai and the UAE overall, where our government also encourages new businesses to come up and new innovative ideas," says Enoc Link's Chief Business Officer Saeed Amiri.
"We believe that (at the) end of the day the end user will benefit from the competition," he adds.
ENOC also has moving gas station which are set up in areas in the city far from petrol pumps.
Those stations can be disassembled and moved to another location within 30 days.
The company gets its fuel from its own refinery in Jebel Ali Port.
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