Katoen Natie is an international

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

service provider and

port operator A port operator is a port authority or company that contracts with the port authority to move cargo through a port at a contracted minimum level of productivity. They may be state-owned (particularly for port authorities) or privately run. The wo ...

. The company is present in 36 countries in five continents and employs about 13.000 people worldwide. In 2009 the company had 154 logistics platforms. Its headquarters are located in Antwerp,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

Fields

The company is organized in 7 main business units, each focusing on a specific branch: * petrochemicals * specialty chemicals * consumer goods * industry * general cargo & commodities * port operations * processing & projects * art

History

Incorporated in 1854 as a cooperative in the

port of Antwerp The Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the port of the City of Antwerp. It is located in Flanders (Belgium), mainly in the province of Antwerp but also partially in the province of East Flanders. It is a seaport in the heart of Europe accessible to ...

(Belgium), the original activities of Katoen Natie consisted of typical

wharfinger Wharfinger (pronounced ''wor-fin-jer)'' is an archaic term for a person who is the keeper or owner of a wharf. The wharfinger takes custody of and is responsible for goods delivered to the wharf, typically has an office on the wharf or dock, and ...

activities: the reception and handling of goods on the docks, especially cotton – hence the ‘Katoen’ in the name- and other commodities such as jute, coffee, cocoa, wool, rubber, aluminum. The wharfinger (Natie) traditionally formed the link between the

stevedoring A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number ...

(loading and discharging of ships) and transport activities to and from the hinterland. In the 1980s the range of sectors was expanded to include

consumer goods A final good or consumer good is a final product ready for sale that is used by the consumer to satisfy current wants or needs, unlike a intermediate good, which is used to produce other goods. A microwave oven or a bicycle is a final good, b ...

(e.g. textiles, electronics, DIY articles, fast-moving consumer goods) and the

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable so ...

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

and automotive industries. The 1990s marked a strong international growth for Katoen Natie. Nowadays, the company is present in Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

Services

Katoen Natie offers integrated logistics solutions, including warehousing and storage, packing and (re)packaging, transport and distribution, value-added services, cleaning and repair, projects & process engineering and port operations. Each business unit has its own set of services:

Petrochemicals

Katoen Natie offers a global logistic service for the petrochemicals industry. The supply scope includes product related activities such as homogenizing, drying, sieving, deodorizing, grinding, dedusting... of plastics.

Specialty chemicals

Provides the link between producers and end-users of

specialty chemicals Speciality chemicals (also called specialties or effect chemicals) are particular chemical products which provide a wide variety of effects on which many other industry sectors rely. Some of the categories of speciality chemicals are adhesives, ag ...

and high-tech plastics.

Consumer goods

Manages the logistics and distribution of fast-moving goods such as textiles, DIY, sporting goods, consumer electronics, preserved food, etc.

Industry

The Industry business group offers supply chain solutions to customers in the automotive world, such as vehicle manufacturers, first and second tier suppliers and suppliers to the aftermarket. This business unit also offers solutions to manufacturers and distributors of industrial products, such as machinery, tools and semi-finished products .

General cargo & commodities

This business unit provides logistics and engineering services. From transport and reception of general cargo and commodities to the conditioning, repackaging and distribution towards the final customer, plus everything in between.

Port operations

Offers

and terminal services for containers, general

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can ...

and forest products. It also provides container depots, maintenance & repair and warehousing services, in ports in Europe and South America.

Processing & projects

This business unit is active in designing and building industrial processing lines and logistics terminals. Services offered range from process technologies, product handling, dosing, mixing, storage characteristics, process controls,... to total project management of green-field terminal/facility build: permit requests, civil and mechanical construction, utility analyses and tie-ins to local networks.

Green policy

In 2009 Katoen Natie installed 800.000 m² of solar panels on the roofs of its warehouses in

Kallo Kallo is a village and ''deelgemeente'' (sub-municipality) of Beveren in East Flanders, Belgium. Kallo was an independent municipality until 1 January 1977, when it merged with Beveren as part of the fusion of municipalities in Belgium. Most of ...

, Antwerp,

Genk Genk () is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the town of Genk itself. It is one of the most important industrial towns in Flanders, located on the Albert Canal, ...

and

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

. These installations produce a yearly amount of about 35 gigawatt hours, accounting for 25% of the total solar energy capacity of the

Flemish region The Flemish Region ( nl, Vlaams Gewest, ),; german: Flämische Region usually simply referred to as Flanders ( nl, link=no, Vlaanderen ) ; german: link=no, Flandern is one of the three regions of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and t ...

. The electricity that is generated with these solar panels is mainly used for the Katoen Natie's own electricity supply. The remaining energy is transferred back to the electricity net. In 2017 Katoen Natie installed six

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wi ...

at the Loghidden City logistics park in

. Together the windmills generate about 52 GWh per year which is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 13,000 households. The company is currently investigating the implementation of

electric cars An electric car, battery electric car, or all-electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using only energy stored in batteries. Compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric cars are quiet ...

Loghidden City

Centrally located in the port of Antwerp lies Loghidden City, a high-tech logistics complex covering some 260 hectares. It has 350m of wharf at the entrance of the

lock where barges and feeders can be loaded and unloaded. The logistics complex counts about 150 warehouses of 8000 m2 each.

HeadquARTers: Katoen Natie’s art collection

The group has an art collection, housed in its headquarters. HeadquARTers was created by the architects Robbrecht and Daem. Four 19th century warehouses, two Art Nouveau houses and one new building have been integrated into the company's headquARTers. HeadquARTers houses the world's largest collection of textiles and “objets d’art” of the

Coptic art Coptic art is the Christian art of the Byzantine- Greco-Roman Egypt and of Coptic Christian Churches. Coptic art is best known for its wall-paintings, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and metalwork, much of which survives in monasteries ...

(late Egyptian period). Some of the fabrics date from as far back as 2000 BC. In addition, the Katoen Natie headquarters houses an extensive Cobra collection with works by the Belgian artists

Pierre Alechinsky Pierre Alechinsky (born 19 October 1927) is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to tachisme, abstract expressionism, and lyrical abstraction. Life Alechinsky was born in Schaerbeek. In 1944 he ...

and

Christian Dotremont Christian Dotremont, (; 12 December 1922 – 20 August 1979), was a Belgian painter and poet who was born in Tervuren, Belgium. He was a founding member of the Revolutionary Surrealist Group (1946) and he also founded COBRA together with Danis ...

, the Dutchmen Karel Appel,

Corneille Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...

, Rooskens and

Lucebert Lucebert (; Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk; 15 September 1924 – 10 May 1994) was a Dutch artist who first became known as the poet of the COBRA movement. He was born in Amsterdam in 1924. He entered the Institute for Arts and Crafts in 193 ...

and the Danish artists

Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest c ...

Carl-Henning Pedersen Carl-Henning Pedersen (23 September 1913 – 20 February 2007) was a Danish painter and a key member of the COBRA movement. He was known as the "Scandinavian Chagall", and was one of the leading Danish artists of the second half of the 20th ...

and Egill Jacobsen. Contemporary artists from Latin America are represented as well. Installations by the hand of

Wim Delvoye Wim Delvoye (born 1965 in Wervik, West Flanders) is a Belgian neo-conceptual artist known for his inventive and often shocking projects. Much of his work is focused on the body. As the critic Robert Enright wrote in the art magazine ''Border ...

, Jan Fabre, Panamarenko, Denmark, Kobe and

Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Broodthaers (28 January 1924 – 28 January 1976) was a Belgian poet, filmmaker, and visual artist with a highly literate and often witty approach to creating art works. In 1943-1951 he was a member of a Communist party. Life and career ...

complete the collection.

References

{{Authority control 1854 establishments in Belgium Companies based in Antwerp Logistics companies