IN INDUSTRIES AS VARIED AS PLASTICS, MANUFACTURING, AND
freight shipping, appetites for petroleum products are insatiable. And when the underlying
commodity—oil—is notoriously volatile, the search for stable costs is ongoing.
Enter: Noil Petroleum. The Chicago-based distributor leverages economies of scale,
coupled with know-how rooted in a family business, to serve a clientele that includes
various hedge funds, Southwest Airlines, and the U.S. Department of Defense, to name a
few. And it’s on track to grow revenue from $400 million in 2018 to a projected $3 billion
in 2019.
The concept is simple: Fewer middle-
men means lower costs. Noil Petroleum
represents oil majors such as Shell, Exxon-
Mobil, Vitol, and Phillips 66, and it sells to
wholesalers that supply gas stations and
other customers.
But Noil also sells directly to an array
of organizations that need gasoline, diesel,
jet fuel, lubricants, and other petroleum
products. One major trucking company in
the Northeast, for example, recently signed
a $1.4 billion annual contract with Noil to
supply fuel via 12 East Coast terminals.
This obviously helps the two companies,
but their customers benefit as well.
“They were going through suppliers
who would buy fuel from us rather than go-
ing through someone at the top of the sup-
ply chain,” says Noil Petroleum President
and CEO Steve Neely. “By coming under
our umbrella, we’re able to save them
about $12 million annually.”
Noil has a hard-earned sense of what
customers need, partly because Neely
has been in the trenches with them.
Neely’s father, Spencer, bought his first
Chicago gas station in 1967 and built it
into a multifaceted enterprise with 32 gas
stations, more than 100 tow trucks, and a
heating-oil delivery arm. As a young man,
Steve Neely drove a tow truck for his dad,
repaired transmissions, and placed fuel
orders. “Back in the old days, you’d go out
there with a long stick, and stick the gas
to see what the levels were,” Neely says.
“Ordering the fuel was very complicated
because it dealt with a lot of math, but
that’s what we had to do every day.” These
days, ordering fuel is often an automated
process, and Neely is no stranger to tech
solutions. Prior to founding Noil in 2011, he worked in telecommunications and helped
launch the T-Mobile brand in the U.S.
Being a nimble player allows Noil to move quickly on a global stage, and the company
stepped into the spotlight this past year as an understudy supplier as Mexican refineries
shut down. Noil’s solution involves sending hundreds of thousands of barrels of fuel over
the U.S.-Mexico border daily.
With the capacity to solve problems on such a large scale, Noil plans to continue
scouting new opportunities aggressively. Positioning at the top of the supply chain clearly
has its advantages.■CONTENT FROM NOIL PETROLEUM
Fueled forsuccess