Breaking Down Barriers is Just Part of the Job for Lord Energy

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Oct 15, 2018, 12:30 ET

HOUSTON, Oct. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In an industry dominated by a few corporate titans, Swiss-based oil and commodities merchant Lord Energy stands firmly as an underdog. Despite its smaller size and relative youth, however, the company has never lacked in ambition or been afraid to break down barriers. Since its founding in 2008, the company has grown from a small consulting firm into a multinational player that adeptly holds its own among titans in the industry.

Finding success as a newcomer, however, was no easy task. The oil industry is a notoriously tricky sector to break into, controlled as it is by a small circle of significant players. Founder and managing director Hazim Nada puts the issue into perspective, "We can't just compete with these giants [directly]. Every single one of our competitors turns out $100 billion a year." As Nada describes it, Lord Energy doesn't operate on the same scale now — and it certainly couldn't meet its competition head-on during its earliest years. Lord Energy had to come at the issue from a new direction.

"[Our competitors] have a lot more ability; they have a lot more capital; they have a lot more reach. We can't just sit there and do what they do," Hazim Nada explains. "If we don't innovate, we can't even survive in this business."

But Lord Energy did survive; it even came to thrive. Though Hazim Nada's ultimate intent was to break into the oil industry, he started out relatively small by consulting as a quantitative analyst for oil-centered investment entities. Eventually, the company began to move dry commodities such as steel, grain, coal, and cement. These earlier goods served as valuable stepping stones on the path towards oil, allowing Nada to garner enough capital to break into the oil market.

Given that the average crude oil shipment ranges in price from $60 million to $160 million apiece, vaulting the buy-in barrier was no small feat. However, once Lord Energy achieved that benchmark, it was able to employ out-of-the-box solutions to create value for their consumers, propose new grades of crude to industrial end users, and open new and more affordable markets to consumers.

Today, Lord Energy maintains operations on six of the seven continents without intervention from any third-party investors. The company intends to continue to expand its reach and secure a steady flow of crude across the globe in future years.