Vopak

Royal Vopak N.V. (Dutch: Koninklijke Vopak) is a Dutch company that stores and handles various oil, chemicals, edible oils and natural gas-related products. The company was created by the merger of Van Ommeren and Pakhoed in 1999. In 2002, the distribution of oil and natural gas related products was split off; a new company Univar was created for that purpose. The head office is located in Rotterdam.

Royal Vopak

Vopak Terminal Laurenshaven (Rotterdam, Nederland) — Vopak Terminal Laurenshaven (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

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Königlicher Vopak

Reales de Vopak

In 2000 Vopak announced that they sold their 1,5 million m³ Botlek terminal to Norwegian competitor Odfjell. Early in 2002 the CEO Ton Spoor left with immediate effect, officially because of ‘personal reasons’, but it was rumoured that the break of trust between him and the company was caused by the €150 million write-off in 2001 caused by a failed attempt to introduce a pan-European IT system. Spoor was succeeded by Gary Pruitt.
The new combined company Vopak had a difficult start: there was only very limited synergy to be found in the storage services and the chemical distribution services and the company lacks the funds to realize her growth strategy. Because of that Vopak decided to split off and then sell the distribution services as Univar. This results in Vopak losing approx. 80% of her turnover. CEO Pruitt also moves to Univar and former van Ommeren CEO Carel van der Driest returns, now as CEO of Vopak.