French engineering entering the Mexican fuel retail sector

One year ago, entering the Mexican market seemed more like a dream than reality to Artelia. After the liberalisation of the Mexican O&G sector, this dream became reality last September 2018. Artelia won an EPCM contract to assist one of the major international players in developing their retail network in Mexico.

One of Artelia’s core business lines is the O&G retail sector in emerging and mature markets. Artelia supports its clients all around the world, providing EPCM and design services.

The business model of ARTELIA is based on creating a Joint Venture with a local partner when entering new markets. This allows us to quickly gain in-sight in the country’s legal environment as well as in operational aspects and local actors. ARTELIA founded a Mexico City-based JV together with the local partner, CAL Y MAYOR. One of the determining factors for this decision was to identify a company sharing ARTELIA’s (and our client’s) very high Safety-, Social and Ethical Standards. This JV delivers EPCM services, with in-house design services.

ARTELIA implemented a strategy that has shown its results for many years in other parts of the world. The Project team structure is made up of a strong central support team based in Europe and the mobilization of a new “local” team. The Central team, with a robust experience, concentrates its efforts in five major areas: HSSE, Design, Procurement, Commercial and Quality. A Project Execution Plan has been developed over the last 10 years and provide a strong tool for managing mobilization, knowledge transfer and training. This allowed us to set up our Mexican team and start working within a very short time frame.

We believe that the Mexican market is a big opportunity for French companies to export Project Management capabilities. ARTELIA is bringing to Mexico 25 years of experience in the O&G retail market. American companies have had a strong influence on how Project Management is perceived in the country. The French way of working brings another point of view of how projects can be managed, with a touch of Latin DNA.

We face several challenges on the Mexican market such as obtaining building permits but also aligning local HSSE habits with the Artelia’s and international clients’ standards. The Franco-Mexican partnership helps us face these challenges with a lot of confidence.

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