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Satyendra Pathak
Doha
In a first-of-its-kind service in Qatar, a young Qatari entrepreneur has launched a fuel delivery app, ‘iFuel’, to fill car tanks at customers’ doorsteps with the help of specifically built trucks in different localities of the country.
Launched with a tag line ‘never stop for petrol again, we fill, you chill’, iFuel will be commercially operational in the next 10 months once all the tests are conducted and all regulatory approvals are taken.
One of the eight winners of ‘Al Fikra 2019’ competition conducted by Qatar Development Bank, the Qatari start-up ‘iFuel’ was co-founded by Nasser al Kaabi and Jamal Khatib a few months ago with the aim to spare residents and nationals from long queues at petrol stations in the country.
“We take the hassle out of topping-up your vehicle fuel tank by coming to you. Thanks to our at home petrol top-up app, waiting at the gas station will be a matter of past. Book a date that suits you for your top-up, leave your vehicle’s fuel cap open and we’ll take care of the rest,” iFuel Co-founder and CEO Nasser al Kaabi said while making a presentation of the innovative app in Doha on Tuesday.
Providing more details about the viability of the new initiative, iFuel Co-founder and COO Jamal Khatib said, “We have got very good response from the Ministry of Energy and Woqod and other regulatory authority to make the project operational.”
“We have finalised a deal with Data Line Software Services to develop the iFuel application and we’re currently working on specifically built trucks to sync with the app. We want to ensure 100 percent accuracy before making this service operational,” Khatib said.
“We want to be fully confident in the safety of this service. The trucks will be equipped with fire extinguishers in the unlikely event of a fire. We will transport small amounts at a time, making it even safer,” he said.
As per the plan, Khatib said, the service will start with four trucks in high traffic areas like The Pearl-Qatar, West Bay and Qatar University.
“We will be expanding region by region and then hopefully we will reach a point when we will cover the entire country,” he said.
“The price of petrol will be the same as what you would get at any fuel station and is in line with standard Qatar pricing. All you pay for is a small service fee of QR18 that will be factored into the total cost. This service fee will be the same regardless of how much a customer’s car needs,” Khatib said.
“Our aim is to save customers from the frustration of not having nearby fuel stations and endless queues. We want to give them a little more of their most precious resource that is time. As per our research, on an average people in Qatar spend at least 15 to 20 minutes at petrol stations especially in high traffic areas to get their car tanks filled. We want to save ‘this precious’ time for them,” he said.iFuel Co-founder and CEO Nasser al Kaabi (right) and iFuel Co-founder and COO Jamal Khatib with ‘Al Fikra 2019’ award in Doha on Tuesday.
Doha
In a first-of-its-kind service in Qatar, a young Qatari entrepreneur has launched a fuel delivery app, ‘iFuel’, to fill car tanks at customers’ doorsteps with the help of specifically built trucks in different localities of the country.
Launched with a tag line ‘never stop for petrol again, we fill, you chill’, iFuel will be commercially operational in the next 10 months once all the tests are conducted and all regulatory approvals are taken.
One of the eight winners of ‘Al Fikra 2019’ competition conducted by Qatar Development Bank, the Qatari start-up ‘iFuel’ was co-founded by Nasser al Kaabi and Jamal Khatib a few months ago with the aim to spare residents and nationals from long queues at petrol stations in the country.
“We take the hassle out of topping-up your vehicle fuel tank by coming to you. Thanks to our at home petrol top-up app, waiting at the gas station will be a matter of past. Book a date that suits you for your top-up, leave your vehicle’s fuel cap open and we’ll take care of the rest,” iFuel Co-founder and CEO Nasser al Kaabi said while making a presentation of the innovative app in Doha on Tuesday.
Providing more details about the viability of the new initiative, iFuel Co-founder and COO Jamal Khatib said, “We have got very good response from the Ministry of Energy and Woqod and other regulatory authority to make the project operational.”
“We have finalised a deal with Data Line Software Services to develop the iFuel application and we’re currently working on specifically built trucks to sync with the app. We want to ensure 100 percent accuracy before making this service operational,” Khatib said.
“We want to be fully confident in the safety of this service. The trucks will be equipped with fire extinguishers in the unlikely event of a fire. We will transport small amounts at a time, making it even safer,” he said.
As per the plan, Khatib said, the service will start with four trucks in high traffic areas like The Pearl-Qatar, West Bay and Qatar University.
“We will be expanding region by region and then hopefully we will reach a point when we will cover the entire country,” he said.
“The price of petrol will be the same as what you would get at any fuel station and is in line with standard Qatar pricing. All you pay for is a small service fee of QR18 that will be factored into the total cost. This service fee will be the same regardless of how much a customer’s car needs,” Khatib said.
“Our aim is to save customers from the frustration of not having nearby fuel stations and endless queues. We want to give them a little more of their most precious resource that is time. As per our research, on an average people in Qatar spend at least 15 to 20 minutes at petrol stations especially in high traffic areas to get their car tanks filled. We want to save ‘this precious’ time for them,” he said.iFuel Co-founder and CEO Nasser al Kaabi (right) and iFuel Co-founder and COO Jamal Khatib with ‘Al Fikra 2019’ award in Doha on Tuesday.
