“The best optimization tool in more than a decade”

The situation

Vesta Terminals used to encounter lots of errors when announcing the arrival of vessels. This was mostly because the announcement positions were either incorrectly recorded or not recorded at all and the cargo information was unclear. Using UAB-Online resolved all these issues.

A petroleum “hotel” where the client is always right

Vesta Terminals is the place you need if you want to store petroleum products. It is always busy at their 935,000-m3 storage space at the Port of Antwerp, not to mention at their smaller sites in Vlissingen and Tallinn. “With 1,800 inland shipping vessels and 300 ocean-going vessels a year, we are transhipping 24/7 in Antwerp,” says Kevin. “I sometimes call our company the petroleum product hotel! We store fuels including petrol, middle distillates, Jet A-1, FAME and other biofuels and sustainable aviation fuel. We provide our clients with safe, reliable storage facilities.”

Aside from storage capacity, Vesta Terminals mainly focuses on providing services to their clients. “For us, safety, reliability and efficiency come first because that is what our clients need. We think of our clients as family.”

Paperwork

We realised that the vessel announcement process didn’t always run smoothly or match our client-focused approach. Kevin: “Boatmasters used to call us and we would write down their arrival time and other details on paper. Digitisation meant inputting this information into an Excel sheet. But the data on paper and in the Excel sheet gave rise to the same issues.

“If you misunderstood the boatmaster or forgot to write something down, the vessel announcement position was wrong. This would lead to conflict and unwanted consequences. Or else the vessel cargo wasn’t what you thought it was and so the vessel would moor at the wrong quay and couldn’t unload. The manual system didn’t provide insight or control options.”

Right on the money

When Kevin first heard about UAB-Online, his interest was piqued. “It was during a quarterly Belgian work meeting where the terminals and inland shipping companies come together to discuss their issues and new developments,” he explains. “A number of them had tried the platform and they were very enthusiastic. We decided then and there to ask Bas and Hans for a demo.”

Once Kevin had found UAB-Online, there was no turning back. “The platform was exactly what we were looking for. This shows that UAB understands terminals and terminal processes. Without a doubt, it has been the best optimization tool in our industry in at least a decade. No one else has been able to produce a similar system,” he insists.