Staying number one

Yogesh Mehta tells Tank Storage Magazine about Petrochem Middle East’s new terminal, the move into manufacturing, and a recruitment drive for fresh talent Petrochem Middle East began life in 1995, and in the 26 years since, has grown to be the largest chemical distributor in the Middle East and the tenth largest chemical distributor in the world. It supplies industries including the pharmaceutical, oil, paints and coatings, and general chemical industries, working on a ‘just in time’ basis. Its turnover in 2020 was US$1.5 billion (€1.28 billion) and it employs 235 people. The company head office is in Dubai, with other offices in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Egypt, India, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia. ‘Back in ‘95 we wanted to be the largest chemical distributor in the region so we set up barriers to entry for other competitors by building our own tank terminal. We built it in four phases. First of all, we had just the drum storage area and a few tanks as phase one, and then we built more tanks in phases two, three and four,’ says Petrochem Middle East founder and CEO Yogesh Mehta. The terminal, in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone, now has 23 bulk storage tanks with a total...