African Desk helps expand petroleum client base

Ensuring the smooth transit of goods into Africa was the motivation behind the launch earlier this year of Turners Shipping’s Johannesburg-based African Desk – and it’s paying dividends, according to manager Adrian Ashley. “Many of our clients do business in the Sadec countries where road freight is the transport mode of choice,” says Ashley. “Turners is well established in the petroleum industry so the role of the African Desk is to expand our operations into other areas of business.” While land-locked countries like Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi have to rely on road transport, countries with ports, which include Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, also rely heavily on the inland road networks. “Road transport is much faster – in the case of Angola delivery time is cut from three weeks by sea to as little as six days by road,” explains Ashley. Turners Shipping is the South African partner in the BDP Global Network. Goods transported range from heavy machinery and equipment to toilet paper. Mines in Zambia and Zimbabwe for example have to buy in everything as there are little or no locally manufactured products available, says Ashley. As the economies to the North develop the demand for road freight from South Africa will increase, he said. “One of the early successes achieved in our new venture is the capture of a contract to handle the transport for a petroleum company that is refurbishing the forecourts of its service stations in eight African countries."