Demand takes the pressure off industry restructuring

Last year was a relatively good one for the independent storage business – tank utilisation rates at hub locations increased, although not by enough to warrant a large increase in fees. Conditions were sufficiently strong, however, to slow the process of industry restructuring, which was launched by the creation of Vopak. Meanwhile, there are signs that the merging of former-Pakhoed’s and former-Van Ommeren’s operations to create Vopak is not proceeding as smoothly as planned, writes Martin Quinlan