January 6, 2022 [TankTerminals.com] – The HES Hartel Tank Terminal, situated at a prime location in the Port of Rotterdam, is facing insolvency issues before even operating.
The project was announced in March 2017 in a joint press release from the Port of Rotterdam and operator HES International. The facility would be used for the large scale storage and handling of petroleum products and biofuel in 52 tanks and would have BP as launching customer. In order to cater the needs of the client, pipelines would be installed to connect to BP’s refinery in the Europoort. The Port of Rotterdam has been in charge for the building of a quay of 1100 meters long, for the handling of barges but also up to VLCC-sizes tankers.
The facility was planned to be operational from 2019 on, but faced difficulties and the start date has been pushed back several times with the new start date beginning of 2023.
According to the administrator Mr Carl Hamm in a news article from Rijnmond News, problems were caused by the corona pandemic, rising prices and an incident in August 2022 causing major problems due to a fire. “The entire control and operating system has to be rebuilt.
That takes a lot of time and will cost many tens of millions more.” This amount will get on top of an investment of around €400 million already pushed into the complex. The management of HES decided to apply for suspension of payment, which was granted by Rotterdam court end of December 2022.
Hamm: “After the fire at the end of August, BP said: this is taking too long for us, we are going to consider whether we still want to continue with each other under these conditions. The banks backing the investment also decided to withdraw, ” the administrator reports. He is trying to get all the involved parties together, but is pessimistic about the outcome. “It is inevitable that people will suffer financially.
My aim is to limit the damage as much as possible.” Hamm confirms that several parties have already expressed interest in a possible takeover. He hopes to be able to provide more clarity at the end of this week.
Pro Trial: Access 11,340 Tank Terminal and Production Facilities
11,340 tank storage and production facilities as per the date of this article. Click on the button and register to get instant access to actionable tank storage industry data
