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Thinking out of the box in tough economic times
The perfect storm of very low oil prices, a mining sector in crisis and a wobbly economy is putting immense pressure on the petrochemical sector, but this is not necessarily bad news for the supply chain.
“While market demands have shifted drastically toward cost-savings as the primary concern, the supply chain has to maintain extremely high safety and quality standards while reducing costs. Despite the challenges, it is not the first time we are facing this issue. Following the 2008 global economic downturn, we initiated the introduction of new innovations to extract additional value from the petrochemical supply chain – a process we continue to this day,” says Noddy Ramroop, operations executive: petrochemical for Unitrans.
Mining for value
South Africa’s mining sector, the country’s oldest and most established industry, shed 23 000 jobs in 2015 after falling commodity prices and subdued demand from China left the sector with massive financial losses and much lower production output. “The mining sector is the second largest consumer of petrochemical products after retail. The reduced demand from this critical sector – in addition to the historically low global oil prices that fell from $110 a barrel to just over $40 a barrel puts huge pressure on petrochemical companies.”
Expanding into Africa
Operating in South Africa, BNLS (Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, and Swaziland) and cross border transportation into Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Unitrans has leveraged off its supply chain network across Africa to expand our petrochemical operations into Zambia and Mozambique.
Safety in innovation
For the petrochemical sector, our PBS (performance based standards) petrochemical tanker combines a low centre of gravity with carefully balanced power-to-weight ratios, reducing the wear on our public roads.”
According to Ramroop, safety is the primary concern for the petrochemical sector. “We have ISO9000, ISO14000 and OHSAS18000 certification. Our petrochemical tanker fleet also require permits from provincial departments of transport, who require that our vehicles are reviewed by a panel of independent experts that include the CSIR’s built environment division and the department of transport.”
