INEOS Project One: 29 carriers to Antwerp, >€20 million saved

The project

Project One is the new-build ethylene cracker in the Port of Antwerp, a €4 billion investment and the largest in European chemicals in 25 years. It will be the most sustainable cracker of its kind and is due to start up in 2026. At peak more than 3,000 people worked on site.

The logistics challenge

Together with three EPC partners (Técnicas Reunidas, Wood and Technip Energies), 14 semi-submersible carriers, 15 heavy-lift carriers and many part charters moved modules and equipment from Abu Dhabi, Hamriyah, Thailand, China and the Philippines to Antwerp.

This was module transport and project cargo shipping at project scale: semi-submersible transport for the heaviest pieces, heavy lift shipping for columns and reactors, part charters and breakbulk for the rest. Every shipment had to pass quay planning, draft restrictions and the construction schedule on site. Heavy lift Port of Antwerp means limited quay capacity, tight windows and aligning three EPC partners at once — petrochemical project logistics where a missed window hits the critical path immediately.

Result

By revising the shipping arrangements engineered by the EPC partners I saved more than €20 million. That came from logistics tender benchmarking shipping: the same scope back into the market, rates and charter parties side by side, and renegotiating on what the market actually does. If you want to reduce shipping costs in an EPC project, that is where it starts. When the Red Sea became impassable due to the Houthi attacks and vessels had to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, those savings absorbed the extra cost that would otherwise have exceeded the budget.

I look back with pride on a unique project with unique people, unique logistics and unique challenges. I fulfilled the Logistics Manager role alone, but without the INEOS team it would not have succeeded.