The scope of the multi-year agreement comprises transportation services for air, ocean, road and rail, industrial projects, freight management and other logistics services connected with the exploration and production of oil and gas.

“The agreement with BP is great news for Panalpina. We’ve gone through tough times in Oil and Gas in the past years,” said Panalpina CEO Monika Ribar. “Today we are stronger than ever before in that area of expertise. We are best-in-class when it comes to compliance and standards for Health, Safety, Security and Environment. And more importantly, we have the experience, the capability and the capacity to execute and deliver for our Oil and Gas customers.”

Upstream business under one single contract
The agreement unites Operations and Freight Management Services for upstream capital projects under a single contract. The upstream sector is known as the exploration and production (E&P) sector. It involves the searching for potential underground or underwater oil and gas fields, drilling of exploratory wells, and subsequently operating the wells that recover and bring the crude oil or raw natural gas to the surface.

Panalpina’s Oil and Gas and Panprojects to work hand-in-hand
“Panalpina has proven its commitment to the oil and gas industry for more than four decades, traditionally with a focus on servicing the highly demanding upstream part of the business,” said Frank Bichowski, Global Head of Industry Vertical Oil and Gas at Panalpina. “Together with BP we can take the oil and gas supply chain to the next level.” To drive innovation, Panalpina’s oil and gas specialists will work hand-in-hand with the in-house specialists for industrial projects.

The industrial projects division of the Panalpina Group, Panprojects, will mostly handle upstream business under this agreement. Some 300 specialists around the world provide integrated logistics turnkey project forwarding and management services on a global scale. “Our services are especially suited for companies like BP,” said Christopher Kent, Global Head of Panprojects. “BP will benefit from our industry-specific expertise that we have gained from the completion of numerous large and small projects in all industry segments worldwide over the past two decades.”

A major milestone in reaching goals for 2014
It took one and a half years from the first talks through the RFI (Request for Information) and tender process to the signing of the contract. “I am very proud of our organization and our dedicated people across the globe that made this possible. The agreement is of paramount importance for Panalpina and a major milestone in reaching our goals for 2014,” said CEO Monika Ribar.

Bettina Heinrich