As for the first six months of this year, Dick Richelle, chairman of the board of tank storage company Vopak, is confident. “We ended 2022 strongly and we expect to continue that good line. This applies to the storage of gas, chemicals and oil. The uncertainty is now mainly in the second half of 2023.”
But, Richelle said immediately in an explanation of the annual figures on Wednesday, that does not mean that things will suddenly go less well for the Rotterdam company after the summer. “No, we just don’t know yet how certain contracts [voor de huur van terminals] to develop. That depends, for example, on inflation and, by extension, on economic development. In that economic climate, are customers still interested in renewing their storage contract?”
Not only the economy plays a role in this, but also market developments, whether or not under the influence of political tensions or even war. Take the diesel market, for example, where sanctions against Russia play an important role. “The demand for storage of diesel is now high, but will it stay that way?”
Write-offs
The largest independent storage company in the world presented a profit of 294 million euros over 2022 on Wednesday. That is 1.3 percent less than a year ago, mainly due to a higher tax assessment in the Netherlands. This resulted indirectly from write-offs of almost half a billion euros at Rotterdam terminals that were announced in the summer. If the accelerated depreciation – due to lower profit expectations – is included, then a net loss of 168 million euros remains.
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According to Richelle, such write-downs are the result of an ongoing analysis of the existing activities and possible investments in new areas. “This Wednesday we are also announcing the strategic reorientation for three chemical terminals in the Rotterdam Botlek.” By this, the foreman who took office last year mainly means that he checks whether there are buyers: “In fact, you put a sign with ‘for sale’ in the garden.” But sales are not certain: “We also recently announced such a reorientation in Australia, and that has meant that those activities have remained with Vopak.”
The company posted a turnover of 1.4 billion euros last year, more than 1 percent more than in 2021. The occupancy of the terminals worldwide remained the same at 88 percent. All the political and economic tensions apparently had little impact on the company.
“Our strength is that we have a balanced spread, both in products and regions. For example, the supply of oil was lower last year due to the war in Ukraine, and then you see the supply at our LNG terminal [voor vloeibaar gas] increase again in the port of Rotterdam. And then China will be locked down due to Covid, and we will again benefit from the improving market in the Middle East and the US.”