In a world of hyper-competition and dynamic environment with a lot of uncertainties, adding value to the core business becomes a must for survival. Though the main activity of SUMED is crude oil transportation, the company has introduced and upgraded a number of related services to accommodate customers' needs.

Since start-up, motivated by youthful ambition and embraced by customer appreciation, SUMED has been always involved in upgrading and expanding the span and scope of such services in striving for superiority in serving customers.

The steady growth of Russian and Caspian crude oil flows into the Mediterranean with considerable volume crossing the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere created a business opportunity and a marketing niche for SUMED.

The strategic location of the pipelines, up-to-date facilities and the pool of various crude types handled have qualified SUMED to provide a new flexibility to oil companies in the Mediterranean.

SUMED has modified two SBM's to be able to receive crude oil at Sidi Kerir and reload it again satisfying one or more of the following customer- perceived needs:

• Storage: using SUMED as a buffer to Mediterranean refineries and thus avoiding capital investment in building tanks or maintaining high stocks of such expensive commodity.
  
  
• Accumulating VLCC cargoes to save freight for the long-haul US-bound cargoes.
  
  
• Combining Mediterranean / Russian / Caspian crude with Arabian Gulf types already transported through the pipeline.
  
  
• Feeding Local Refineries (Ex. Midor) with crude Oil.
  
  

Alliances are often essential for survival. Acknowledging this fact both SUMED and the Suez Canal Authority have decided to collaborate on a project that makes best use of their facilities and capabilities in order to maximize their share of oil movements from the Arab Gulf to the western hemisphere market (US East Coast, the Caribbean and Canada).

Motivated by the common vision, SUMED and Suez Canal inaugurated the joint lightering project on the 25th of September 1997 when a VLCC discharged one-third of its cargo at Ain Sukhna, transited the Canal partly laden, claimed back the discharged quantity from Sidi Kerir and sailed to her final destination. To be successful, the lightering system has been designed to provide maximum flexibility and economic advantages to customers compared with the Cape route which in return improves the incentives enjoyed by shippers. The project proved of sound performance and has grown to be prominent in the crude oil transportation cycle.