April 21, 2016 [Hellenic Shipping News] - Air Liquide, BASF, ExxonMobil, Nippon Shokubai, Total, ADPO, Vopak, Oiltanking Stolthaven… the list of production and tank storage companies with recent big investments in the port of Antwerp is impressive indeed.
What is it that makes these world-class players opt for Antwerp? What are the strong points of the Antwerp oil and chemical cluster, and what could still be improved?
The “Energy & Chemicals” unit of Antwerp Port Authority carried out a survey of 40 production and tank storage companies in the cluster from September 2015 to January 2016, in order to gain fresh insights for further consolidating and improving its competitiveness.
Q&A
The port of Antwerp is home to the largest and most varied integrated maritime chemical cluster, at a strategic location in Europe.
The availability of raw materials, an extremely efficient logistics platform, the high productivity and multilingual capability of the Antwerp employees, the trimodal connections with the hinterland … the companies that opt for Antwerp have plenty of solid reasons to justify their choice, according to discussions with the companies in the survey.
They also spoke very highly of Antwerp because of its competitive peripheral conditions. For example, practical measures have recently been taken to overcome the cost disadvantages in terms of electricity prices, although there is still a gap to be made up with neighbouring countries. The cluster itself still has plenty of scope for development, according to the companies.
Many synergies have already been achieved, but there are lots more opportunities for further cluster integration and collaboration between the companies. Possible examples are further reprocessing of by-products, or setting up shared services for companies in the cluster.
What next?
Antwerp’s “report card” given by the companies is therefore positive overall. However there still some points for attention that need to be addressed in order to boost the competitiveness of the companies and to further improve Antwerp’s position as an investment location.
Together with essenscia (Flemish chemical industry federation) and the Flemish Agency for International Enterprise, Antwerp Port Authority will draw up a list of priorities based on the survey results.
