For a country like Maldives with a unique geographic constitution, an efficient distribution network needs to exist. Whether it is for the supply of food items or other commercial merchandise, the need for an efficient network has always been felt. The last two decades have seen the tourism industry boom to new heights never experienced before. This expansion called for setting internationally acceptable standards in the hotel industry. Aggressive competition consequently resulted not only in the development of world-class hotels but also the development of island villages scatted across the nation.  

In addition to the existing power plants in the hotels, developing islands rapidly did away with kerosene lamps and power plants were soon established. Inevitably, with the increase in internal combustion machines (power plants and motor vessels) the demand for fuel increased rapidly. With respect to the geographic distribution of islands, the quantities and frequencies of demand varied chaotically.

To cater to such drastic regional variations in demand the need for a unique fuel distribution system gradually increased. Unique, because the potential supplier would have to take into consideration a broad range of issues. For instance, how often would a certain customer need fuel? Would that customer have an unvarying demand through out the year? How many other customers are there in the same region? What are their demand curves shaped like? What vessel capacity would be feasible to deploy to this region so that other regions are equally taken care of? These are just a few of the issues that the potential supplier would have to take into account.  

Refueling a visiting Naval 

Submarine