Rotterdam, The Netherlands, February 27, 2004

Vopak announces that today the sale of the chemical tanker fleet to the Deutsche Afrika-Linien/John T. Essberger has been completed for the amount in cash as earlier indicated.

The sale of Vopak Chemical Tankers will be effected retroactively with effect of October 1st, 2003.

The Vopak fleet of 14 chemical tankers in the range of 2.500 to 6.400 DWT will be renamed to it’s former name Broere Shipping and business will continue out of Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

All commercial operations will continue under the same concept as until today in the Vopak Essberger ChemPool.

Profile
Royal Vopak provides independent tank terminal capacity over the whole world to the chemical and oil industries for the storage of liquid and gaseous chemical products and oil products. Related to this, Vopak also provides a wide range of logistic services, independently or in cooperation with strategic partners.

The company is divided globally into five market regions and operates a network of 71 tank terminals with a combined storage capacity of approximately 19.9 million m3 in 29 countries.


For further information, please contact:

Royal Vopak
Corporate Communication & Investor Relations
Bon Ellemeet
Telephone : + 31 10 4002777

E-mail : corporate.communication@vopak.com
Web site : http://www.vopak.com/

For further information on Deutsche Afrika-Linien/John T. Essberger see the website http://www.rantzau.de/ or please contact Michael Adeltoft at telephone + 49 172 405 4131.