The impetus to include these means of transport in the portfolio came from a major customer on the Rhine. A desire arose for more flexibility and options for intermodal transport that couldn’t be provided using just the chemical industry’s rail tank cars. The leading figure in VTG’s Engineering division in the mid-1980s was Dietrich Mittelstädt, who developed VTG’s first proprietary tank containers together with a number of manufacturers, including Westerwälder Eisenwerke (WEW), Gocher Fahrzeugbau GmbH (GOFA) and Van Hool. The tank container business initially started as part of the rail tank car wagon leasing business in what was then the “KVT” division. 

At that time, VTG still belonged to Preussag and was housed with the central departments in an old building with a paternoster lift at Neue Rabenstrasse 21. That was during an era when it was still standard to go to work in a shirt and tie, to send internal messages via interoffice mail, to hear the loud clickety-clacks of typewriters throughout the building, and to record letters for the typing pool using a dictaphone. 

From chemical products to whiskey and chocolate

A new department, the “C” unit, was set up for the growing tank container business, and its staff was housed in a building on Grosse Theaterstrasse (“Big Theater Street”), which is why they were henceforth nicknamed “the theater troupe.” The tank container business, which initially consisted mainly of leasing the equipment, changed and international transports in tank containers were increasingly offered. At the beginning, these were also used for “interesting” foodstuffs: chocolate from Africa to Finland, wine from Germany, Italy and France or whiskey from Scotland and sherry from Spain and Portugal to Finland.  

During interviews with job candidates, the head of the department at the time, Mr. Adamczewski, already attached great importance to having a good command of English. Back then, the department was made up of about 18 people. The transport business naturally still involved a lot of paperwork. Correspondence was by telex, bills of lading (B/Ls) and customs documents were typed on a typewriter with carbon copies, and the paperwork for each shipment swelled into a thick file. Of course, the entire transport of a tank container was handled by a single provider at that time, and there wasn’t much in terms of a division of labor. 

The transport flows of the tank containers were mapped on a large board using plug-in cards, each of which was repositioned by hand depending on the container’s current location. Whoever needed a tank to load, took the corresponding card – and therefore figuratively had the tank in hand! The colleague in charge of the board at the time always needed a stepladder to reach the upper rows owing to his short stature. And containers sometimes went “missing in action” if the card slipped behind or fell out of the board. A regular inventory and matching of cards and tank container lists helped dispel any confusion. 

Moves brought the “theater troupe” first to Alsterterrassen 10 and then, together with other smaller departments, to Warburgstrasse 8, which runs parallel to Neue Rabenstrasse. The office offered a ping-pong table in the attic and boat rides on the nearby Alster Lake during lunch breaks. Definitely an attractive location! 

Growing as part of a joint venture

Then, all departments were brought under the same roof when VTG moved into the VTG Center at Nagelsweg 34 on April 1, 1996. To expand the tank container business, the company was looking for a partner that was both internationally positioned with its own locations and had strong ties to the chemical industry. An agreement was reached with the Dutch company Van Ommeren (later VOPAK), which had tank farms spread all over the world as well as excellent connections to the petrochemical industry, and the joint venture VOTG Tanktainer GmbH was founded in 1997. At the time, the “O” was merely a nod to the joint venture (JV) partner.

Rüdiger Steinhardt, the head of the “C” department at that time, was appointed managing director of VOTG together with a counterpart from Van Ommeren (initially Paul Dekker, later Jörg Mainzer). Mathias Grahl, formerly controller and authorized signatory of VOTG, subsequently joined the management team, as did Heike Clausen in 2000. The old plug-in cards and AS/400s, as well as many other manual steps, were replaced by the “Monitor” transport management system. Digitalization gradually made its way into the workplace, which looked noticeably different.

VOTG’s business grew in both Germany and abroad. At first, new locations were opened in Duisburg and Mutterstadt/Ludwigshafen in order to be close to the major chemical customers on the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. This was followed by locations in Rotterdam, Finland and Italy to service the important business on the north-south axis. A US location was opened in West Chester in 1998, and expanding the business into Asia started the following year with the opening of an office in Singapore.

The JV partner Van Ommeren brought the tank container leasing company “Peacock” into the JV. This allowed VOTG to further expand its leasing business and to enjoy access to its own fleet as well as additional leased equipment for transports.

International network

The acquisition of Lehnkering and the consolidation of central departments on Nagelsweg made the VTG Center too small to hold everyone. In 1999, a new home was found at Hammerbrookstrasse 5, where the company moved the following year. New, open rooms were a good fit for the communication-intense logistics business. After Heike Clausen became its sole managing director in 2002, VOTG expanded its business even further. A growing network of active agents in Europe, North and South America, northern and southern Africa, and Asia supported the company’s own locations by servicing local customers and developing new business.

In 2007, there were two big changes: VTG AG acquired all the shares in VOTG, making the latter a wholly owned subsidiary of the former. However, the “O” in the name would only disappear in 2016. Also in 2007, the JV Shanghai COSCO VOTG Tanktainer Co., Ltd (later COSCO VTG Tanktainer) was launched with COSCO Logistics, with four branches in China in addition to its headquarters in Shanghai. Having its own network made it easier for VOTG to access the huge market in the Middle Kingdom.

Adviser and pioneer

VOTG turned 10 in the same year and celebrated a now legendary party in October with many guests from the network in Germany and abroad. Over time, in addition to the busy north-south route between Italy and Scandinavia, VTG Tanktainer expanded its business in Russia and Turkey, including with its own locations.

As a well-known service provider to the chemical industry, VTG Tanktainer has always been an adviser and pioneer for customers when it comes to logistical issues. For example, in many cases, the company has succeeded in convincing the big players in the chemical industry to use combined transport. By 2020, VTG Tanktainer’s workforce had grown to over 200 dedicated employees. Changes and the growing business repeatedly made it necessary to restructure the company, such as by centralizing its European operations in Duisburg.

Setting a strategic course

Under the management of Jan Röbken and Andreas Petersson-Lehmann beginning in 2017, more expansion initially followed with the establishment of the JV in Brazil in 2019. A whole new business model was added in the same year when the company started transporting liquid products in flexitanks. At the same time, business was growing on the New Silk Road with both flexitanks and tank containers. Since then, with the help of JV colleagues in China, many supply chains have been set up that customers are increasingly using as alternatives to transport by sea.

However, a repositioning had to be considered in order to meet market requirements. This was followed by a thorough restructuring, which involved, among other things, the closure of the Ludwigshafen location and the sale of the overseas business. Now the focus has been on the global leasing of tank containers, underpinned by integrated logistics services geared toward Europe and Eurasia.

In April 2021, Klaus Wessing took the helm at VTG Tanktainer together with Andreas Petersson-Lehmann. At the end of the year, the Hammerbrookstrasse era came to an close. VTG was able to rent additional office space on Nagelsweg and to welcome the Hamburg-based employees of VTG Tanktainer to their modern New Work surroundings on November 1, 2021.

As is well known, more big changes are still in the pipelines, but the “theater troupe” will cope well with them too under its proven direction!