The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) annually organizes the IPC conference in Texas. The event is the world’s “largest and most prestigious conference representing the petrochemical industry”, covering key political, economic and environmental issues.
Odfjell Tankers and Odfjell Terminals US host networking events and meetings during the event. Odfjell’ers from sales, commercial, and operations attend to give guests the best information about ongoing projects and future prospects.
“The annual AFPM conference is a central part of our marketing strategy here in North America. The conference provides the perfect platform to meet key people from the oil majors, petrochemical producers and traders that are our global customer base. Delegates travel into San Antonio from around the world with participants from North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Far East, the Middle East and India, so it is important that we have our Trade VP’s from Bergen to support the team here from Houston."
Gareth Williams, General Manager/MOO Odfjell Tankers US.
"My own takeaways from AFPM 2019 are positive on all fronts. Odfjell has great engagement with our customers as well as prospective customers. There is widespread interest in our renewed fleet together with a realization that the fundamentals are seeing the market tighten in terms of tonnage moving forwards.
Perhaps most importantly, there now seems to be a consensus that the IMO2020 regulations necessarily need to be passed on fairly by owners to charterer’s and Odfjell is better positioned than our competitors to insulate customers in a rising bunker cost environment.
As Odfjell, we recognize the importance of transparency and are actively engaging with our key customers to ensure that our market dynamics are communicated to their supply chains. We have to recognize that the majority of our customers are committing to term deals in their sales contracts for their products, so alignment is extremely important.
We operate in a truly global market place and our business environment will always be competitive. We have plenty of work ahead of us but I am confident that we have positioned ourselves and our organization for the future", Williams concludes.
