2.4 Marketing

Our customer-centric marketing activities are centralised in Singapore, The Hague and Antwerp. The focus of the Singapore office is on the Asian energy market, base metals, stainless steel materials and on carbon steelmaking raw materials. The emphasis in The Hague office is on aluminium, petroleum, energy marketing and freight. Our Antwerp office serves our diamonds customers around the world.

These three marketing offices incorporate all the functions required to manage product marketing and distribution — from point of production to final customer delivery. In addition, specialised marketers are located in 21 regional offices around the globe. Our product offering is enhanced by our freight capability and expertise in trading and transaction structuring.

Energy Marketing

Energy Marketing has the responsibility of coordinating our marketing activities in the energy commodity markets, namely energy coal, European gas, emissions credits and electricity. This group is based in The Hague and is part of our marketing function.

Energy Marketing is currently active in purchasing and selling third party gas and small amounts of electricity in the UK and emissions credits in Europe. Where required, Energy Marketing also buys or sells pipeline capacity to transport gas onto the UK gas grid. Most products are transacted over the counter and are principal-to-principal transactions in the wholesale market.

Freight

We have a centralised ocean freight business that manages our in-house freight requirements. The primary purpose of the freight business is to create competitive advantages for internal shipments through the procurement and operation of quality, cost-effective shipping and to contribute to our profitability by trading freight and carrying complementary external cargoes.

The freight business participates primarily in the dry bulk sector aligned with our major trades, and it handles approximately 120 million tonnes of cargo per year making the Group one of the world’s largest users of dry bulk shipping. At any one time, we have approximately 120 ships employed. The majority of vessels are chartered under commercial terms and we hold equity interests in a small number of vessels. External freight revenue was US$1.4 billion for FY2008.

In addition to its freight management and trading activities, the freight business incorporates a skill base to manage its marine risk and provide technical support. It holds a number of marine-related investments, including a shareholding in shipping risk manager ‘Rightships’ of Melbourne.