RUBIS West Indies, a leading supplier of petroleum products and chemicals in the Caribbean, is celebrating its 5th year of operation in St. Vincent this year.
RUBIS is an established French based international private limited company, founded in 1990. In 2011, RUBIS acquired the Texaco assets owned and operated by Chevron in the Eastern Caribbean.
Chief Executive Officer of RUBIS, Mauricio Nichols, speaking last evening at a cocktail reception held in recognition of this milestone, noted that when the company first started in St. Vincent and the Grenadines 5 years ago, it faced serious challenges.
“Our business here faced some serious, serious challenges. Our operations were losing money, the regulated LPG prices were below our cost, our largest fuel sale contract was unprofitable, the equipment and appearance of our service stations was deplorable, and the condition of our LPG cylinders was very very bad,” Mr. Nichols said.
Mr. Nichols said that RUBIS now manages a network of five service stations in St. Vincent. These are St. Vincent Motors, Grand Sables Service Station, St. Vincent automotive Service Station, Questelles Service station, and Peruvian Vale Service Station.
He said RUBIS cumulative investments in this country since 2011, exceed six million US dollars.
“We have invested more than 6 million US dollars in St. Vincent in this short period of five years. Our growth has required that we add new employees across the Eastern Caribbean. We have added seventy one (71) new permanent employees, so that a 48% increase in our employee count and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines we have added seven (7) new employees so we have more than doubled the number of employees we had in 2011,” the RUBIS CEO added.
Mr. Nichols said these numbers exclude the indirect employment which they have also contributed to create, and as such have done their part to contribute to increased employment in this country and the region.
First Published WEFM
