Vopak’s history goes back to 1616 when the world-renowned Dutch East Indies Company was flourishing, bringing in coffee, tea and spices from the Far East and making the Netherlands a rich and powerful nation. The speed of its growth necessitated smooth and effective transshipment and storage infrastructures at the Dutch harbors. Groups of weigh-house porters
joined forces to offer the necessary services including weighing, sorting and storage.

Pakhuismeesteren - Rotterdam's first barrels of oil, 1862

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
This is when our company (in its earliest form) first offered storage and related services to support international logistical product flows. Tea, spices and many other commodities required storage and handling under specific conditions, as does the oil, chemical and gaseous products that we store today. After all these years, conditioned storage has made its way down into our corporate DNA.

Pakhuismeesteren - The new Charlois Site in Rotterdam, 1877

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around 1860, when the Dutch East Indies Company was long gone, the first oil was being drilled in the United States and it was not long before petroleum products were imported to Europe. We built the first-ever dedicated oil storage container in Europe, in the Port of Rotterdam. Our first bulk liquid storage facility has now grown into a global network of more than seventy-five Vopak terminals around the world. In 1999 our parent companies - the international logistic service providers Pakhoed and Van Ommeren - merged to form Vopak. Today we are the world’s largest independent tank terminal operator built on a long tradition of conditioned storage, ready to support our customers with every form of bulk liquid for centuries to come.

Pakhuismeesteren - Charlois Site in Rotterdam, discharge of barrels of oil, 1900

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key dates:

1616	Blauwhoed established in 1616 in Amsterdam, by a group of porters who decided to join forces to carry loads from Oost-Indische Compagnie ships to and from the city weighhouse.
1818	Pakhuismeesteren established in 1818 in Rotterdam. Specialized mainly in the loading, unloading and storage of products from the Dutch colonies, such as tea, coffee, spices. Later started to offer storage facilities for oil and oil products, initially in barrels, but as of 1888 also in bulk tanks.
1839	Van Ommeren began its activities as a shipping and forwarding agent. In the ensuing years, interests were built up in deep sea shipping, inland shipping, tank storage, stevedoring companies and distribution centres.
1967	Pakhoed created through the merger of Pakhuismeesteren and Blauwhoed. Main activities: port activities, stevedoring, shipping agencies, freight forwarding, warehousing, oil and chemical storage.
1986	Pakhoed acquired a 35% interest in US company Univar Corporation, parent company of Van Waters & Rogers, the largest chemical distributor in North America.
1990	Van Ommeren decided to concentrate on two core activities: shipping and tank storage.
1999	Royal Vopak formed through the merger of Pakhoed and Van Ommeren.
2002	Split-off Chemical Distribution activities. Vopak continues as tank storage and logistics company