Company Magazine for the Odfjell Group - April 2008

A Star for FoskorBy Mel PinksOn February 28th, Odfjell Makana S.A.had the pleasure to present to Foskora 1:150 model of Bow Star. The presentationtook place at Foskor’s Midrandoffices, and was attended by executivesand staff from Foskor, Odfjell Makanaand Thembani Shipping.We sincerely thank Foskor for their continualsupport, sincerity and cooperation.Our good relationship with Foskoris a great benefit for Odfjell Makana,and we look forward to continue providinguncompromised shipping and relatedservices to them. Our friends fromThembani Shipping whom were presentat this event, bear testimony to thegenuine manner in which Odfjell Makanare-invests in South African blackempowerment initiatives.We would also like to thank our longtermsuppliers “Swift Air” for doing asuperb job of delivering the model toMidrand in a very timely manner.From left: R. Gideon Skhosana (Chief Procurement Officer Foskor), Peter PaulNgwenya (Chairman Odfjell Makana and Makana Investment Corp.), AlfredPitse (CEO Foskor) and Jan Hammer (Director Odfjell Makana and PresidentOdfjell Seachem)The Rotterdam terminal 1957 – 2007Making the 50th Anniversary bookBy the end of November 2007, the bookdocumenting the history of the Botlekterminal was ready in time for the terminal’s50th anniversary celebration.Theo Kruithof at Odfjell Terminals (Rotterdam)has been the key person in puttingtogether this highly interesting andbeautiful book, and Odfjell Quarterlyhas had a chat with him to hear moreabout the process of making it.The first challenge was to find historicalinformation and illustrations. Obviously,after the split-off in 2000 fromthe former owning company, Pakhoed,few historic files were left. However,a retired chief editor of the Pakhoedcompany magazine happened to haveall volumes from 1957 to 1987 still in hisattic. Even more valuable was the inputfrom the “PlusClub”, a group of retiredcolleagues who still meet frequently totalk about the good old Botlek days.Through them Theo was overloadedwith photos, even back to 1956 and57, and he received missing volumes ofthe company magazine. The pensionersand old-timers still working at OTRalso provided many anecdotes andstories from the terminal over theyears, some of which are retold inthe book. “The stories these mentold”, laughs Theo; “it’s unbelievablethe tricks they pulled on eachother”. Of course they were alsoable to verify and adjust factsand episodes.The book’s lay-out and contentare quite light-hearted. Thesix chapters each cover onedecade, telling the developments andhighlights of the terminal and its employees.Each chapter ends with somewords about the spirit of the time, coveringthe (inter)national highlights ofthat particular period. This, togetherwith interviews with (ex-)employeesand funny anecdotes, makes it an interesting,easy to read and amusing book.“However”, adds Theo, “the book alsotells about the ‘black days’, since theseare part of our history as well”.Thishas been ahuge task, with a very toughtime-pressure for having it ready for theanniversary celebrations. The 144-pagebook is an important historical documentationof the terminal. After all,very few people knew the entire andcomplete story of our terminal, andmost of the memories are in the mindsof the people. This has now been putinto one good looking volume. Welldone!32 Odfjell Quarterly April 2008