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IN TRANSITION
ROYAL VOPAK HAS reported annual revenues for 2020 of €1.19bn, down on the €1.25bn recorded in 2019 but up by 3.2 per cent when recent divestments are taken into account. Similarly, excluding exceptional items, EBITDA rose by 2.6 per cent to €791.5m, although net profit dropped by 15 per cent to €305.8m. Eelco Hoekstra, CEO, is upbeat about the results: “In 2020, we delivered EBITDA growth (post-divestments) in a more volatile business environment. We have outperformed on costs to defend EBITDA and delivered on growth projects, despite construction delays of some
has meant for Vopak: “The Covid-19 pandemic impacted the industries we serve. We have seen unprecedented changes in supply and demand of gas, chemicals and oil and subsequent response of our customers to their portfolios and supply chains. We have experienced an acceleration in the energy transition. We have seen the high dependency on digital infrastructure. “Our strategy is aligned with these trends and strategy delivery progressed in 2020. We continued transforming our portfolio for the future and invested more than €500m in
CHANGE IN PRACTICE The Covid-19 pandemic, while undoubtedly a challenge, has presented an opportunity to focus on the changes needed to prosper in the coming, more digitised world. Vopak has taken that opportunity, as Hoekstra says: “Our digital transformation is progressing well and the pandemic highlighted the benefits of our leading digital infrastructure. We continued the roll-out of our cloud-based system for our terminals, as part of broader efforts to develop our digital architecture to support the industrial logistic chains.” Other factors are also at play, not least the coming energy transition and the imperative to focus on sustainability in industrial operations. Again, though, these changes will present opportunities, as Hoekstra continues: “We are excited by the future prospects and keep our focus on performance and long-term value creation. We have momentum in capturing opportunities to serve large-scale industrial clusters and are advancing our
projects due to Covid-19 restrictions.” The challenges posed to storage terminal operators by the Covid-19 pandemic have been well documented and have come at a time when they are facing a range of other issues that threaten the traditional way of doing business. Hoekstra explains what this
growth, resulting in an additional 1.6m m³ of capacity to meet growing customer demand, particularly in Asia and the Americas. Good progress was made in our industrial terminal portfolio with the acquisition of the Dow terminals in the US Gulf coast with our partner BlackRock,” Hoekstra adds.
efforts in developing infrastructure to support the energy transition. We continue transforming our portfolio and position our company strategically towards more sustainable forms of energy and feedstocks. “We aim to allocate the majority of our growth investments to industrial, gas and new
STRATEGY • VOPAK PERFORMED WELL IN THE CHALLENGING MARKET IN 2020 BUT IS TAKING STEPS TO PREPARE ITSELF FOR THE DIFFERENT TRADING ENVIRONMENT TO COME
HCB MONTHLY | MARCH 2021
