Odfjell SE Annual Report 2012

Rotterdam’s main shipping artery Nieuwe Waterweg,
surrounded by the port’s largest global-scale refineries.
A planning permission procedure has been initiated to
commence terminal operations at the OTM site.
Overall, the Rotterdam tank terminal enjoys an excellent
infrastructure, with five berths for deep-sea tankers, seven
positions for short-sea vessels and 14 positions for barges.
The terminal also has extensive facilities for handling trucks,
ISO containers and rail cars. The site has its own waste
water treatment plant, which also serves third parties.
OTR is an important destination for Odfjell Tankers in
the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) area, and our
long-term objective is to consolidate the tank terminal as
one of the primary hubs for Odfjell’s shipping activities to
and from Europe.
Towards the end of 2011 OTR experienced several incidents
involving vapour emissions. Some of the incidents were
not properly reported to the authorities, which resulted in
the authorities performing further audits and investigations
at the terminal. In July 2012, during inspections
of the fire-fighting equipment, it became clear that the
adequate functioning of the fire-fighting capability could
not be 100% guaranteed for all tanks. As a result, Odfjell
Management decided to conduct a temporarily controlled
safety shutdown of the terminal from 27 July 2012. A large
number of tanks have subsequently been brought back into
service after having successfully passed comprehensive
safety checks. However, the disruption that was caused
during the period after the shutdown led to a number of
customers terminating their contracts with OTR as well
as a number of claims for damages from customers
against OTR.
Following the incidents at OTR, a number of investigations
have been initiated to assess the root causes behind the
course of events and to understand the role played by
management as well as various supervisory organisations
including the environmental authority DCMR, the Regional
Safety Board as well as the Labour Inspectorate. The situation
at OTR has been extensively covered in the media at
both local as well as on national level. In the meantime, the
regulatory authorities have announced that petrochemical
and liquid storage companies will be required to make
their facilities comply with the best available technologies
within the next five years.
OTR has, with support from both shareholders, Odfjell
and Lindsay Goldberg, developed a roadmap to bring in
the short-term bring back as much as possible of the
terminals' capacity into operation mode. Further investment
is subsequently planned to upgrade tank pits which,
because of their age and condition, need more extensive
refurbishment to ensure that future health, safety and
environmental standards are met.
At the end of 2012 some 700,000 cbm was available for
storage again and the PID was operating at limited capacity.
A substantial part of capacity was being occupied by
customers at the end of January 2013. The remaining
capacity will gradually be brought back into service. The
company plans to have a total of around 1.2 million cbm of
storage capacity available by the end of Q2 2013.
Due to lower business activity levels in the near future,
OTR has initiated a process to scale back its workforce,
and has reached an agreement with the trade unions and
OTR’s Works Council for this goal. The reorganisation is
on course to conclude during Q2 2013.
OTR’s results for 2013 will be heavily dependent on achieving
the planned re-start schedule and securing new customer
contracts for the tank capacity that becomes available.
NOORD NATIE ODFJELL TERMINALS NV, BELGIUM (NNOT)
Odfjell Terminals' latest expansion is Noord Natie Odfjell
Terminals in Antwerp, Belgium, in which Odfjell Terminals
(Europe) B.V., a subsidiary of Odfjell Terminals Lindsay
Goldberg CV, has a 25% stake. The terminal offers a unique
combination of storage and related value-added services
for several types of liquids. Noord Natie Odfjell Terminals
mainly focuses on bulk storage with additional activities
such as blending, drumming, packaging and storage of
packed liquids and storage of tank containers.
The terminal has a strategic location in the Port of Antwerp
with easy access to sea, inland waterways, road and rail.
The terminal boasts a wealth of experience in storage,
handling and packaging of commodities as well as niche
market products.
With 230 tanks and a total capacity of 300,000 cbm, Noord
Natie Odfjell Terminals provides storage and related activities
for chemical, liquids for food or feed use, mineral oils,
base oil, oleochemicals and biofuels.
Noord Natie Odfjell Terminals offers a wide variety of
tanks with multiple sizes ranging from 30 cbm to 8,300
cbm of different materials including mild steel, coated or
stainless steel tanks as well as a variety of different types
of tank equipment including insulation, steam heating,
electrical heating or hot water heating, nitrogen installation
and vapour return systems.
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odfjell annual report 2012