DOHA: Qatar Fuel (WOQOD), the main distributor of petroleum products in the country, announced to have 30 new petrol stations by the end of this year, taking the total number of fuel stations to 88, a top official of the company unveiled yesterday.

The company earlier announced to make huge investment this year as part of its long-term growth strategy, and expanding its operations in Qatar. To achieve that ambitious target, WOQOD investing QR634m this year in developing new projects, with special focus in opening more fuel stations across the country.

“We want to reach from 58 to 88 petrol stations by the end of this year. Those are not just plans, but signed contracts with developers who are implementing them on the ground. If you go around, you will get to see being developed in different parts of the country,” Saad Rashid Al Muhannadi, Chief Executive Officer of WOQOD told The Peninsula on the sidelines of the company’s Extraordinary General Assembly (EGM) meeting yesterday.

Asked about company’s plans to expand outside Qatar, including Oman and Kuwait, Al Muhannadi said that currently WOQOD is focusing to invest in Qatar to enhance its services for customer satisfaction.

The shareholders of WOQOD approved all the items on the agenda of the meeting, including the Board of Directors’ proposal to amend Article 9-1 of the company Articles of Associations to raise the non-Qatari ownership to 49 percent of the company share capital and to raise the limits of ownership to the one shareholder to 1 percent.

The EGM, which was presided over by Ahmed Saif Al Sulaiti, Chairman of the Board of Directors of WOQOD, was held at the company’s headquarters in West Bay.

Al Muhannadi (the CEO of WOQOD) indicated that this amendment came in order to give effect to the ‎instructions of Qatar Petroleum to its listed affiliate companies, and also to address the request of ‎Qatar Stock Exchange to undertake the said amendments with the purpose of enhancing the ‎investment attractiveness of Qatari companies, after classification of Qatar was raised ‎by MSCI and a number of international indexing agencies to the level of emerging markets, thus ‎becoming the largest emerging market in the region. ‎

The amended Article 9-1 of WOQOD Articles of Associations reads as follows:‎ ‎”Except for the owner of the privileged ‎share, Shafallah Center and the State of ‎Qatar (as defined in Qatar Financial ‎Market Authority Decision No. 1 of ‎‎2016), the Qatar Foundation for ‎Education, Science and Community ‎Development, The Qatar Investment ‎Authority and Qatar Holding Company, ‎no natural or legal person may at any ‎time – directly or indirectly – hold shares ‎in the Company in excess of 1 percent of the ‎issued capital.‎ Subject to the provisions of the above ‎paragraph, non-Qataris may hold a total ‎percentage of the capital of the ‎Company not exceeding 49 percent of the ‎issued capital in accordance with the ‎provisions of Law No. 9 of 2014 ‎regulating the investment of foreign ‎capital in economic activity”.‎