Seizing a sound opportunity
Although Dong Energy might not view storage as its core business, it is still managing to keep ahead of its competitors
Dong Energy ¿ the result of a merger between Dong, Elsam, NESA, Energi E2, Frederiksberg Forsyning and the electricity division of KÀbenhavns Energi ¿ is the leading Danish energy company. It is active in every link of the energy chain, from offshore production platforms in the North Sea to power plants and wind farms and finally to sale and distribution.
But one area which the company had not been involved in, until a couple of years ago, is storage.
In the 60s and 70s Dong EnergyÍs power plants were almost entirely run on fuel oil, due to the low price of crude oil. But during the oil crises of the 70s, the rising price of crude oil rendered fuel oil too expensive to be a viable source, so the plants were switched to run on coal (this being a major task, was carried out during the first half of the 80s).
This left an array of storage tanks empty at power plants situated around the country, and around the turn of the Millennium, the idea to seize the opportunity to move into the storage sector was born. In 2002 the former refinery area owned by Kuwait Petroleum, Gulfhavn, was purchased by Dong Energy for strategic reasons ¿ the processing unit had been removed from Gulfhavn, but with the acreage Dong Energy acquired some 40 oil storage tanks and a loading pier. For various reasons, it was not until late 2003 that the business unit Dong Energy Oil Terminals was created, and only by the start of 2004 that the first oil was imported.
