Pentagon Freight Services has evolved for over 50 years of service excellence within the verticals of OGE logistics solutions, and now provides turnkey freight project management logistics services to the Renewable Energy sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa covering wind turbine, solar and hydro verticals. Mining and aerospace verticals also form part of its shipping logistics portfolio globally.
WHEN transport and logistics company Pentagon Freight Service started out 50 years ago, it focused primarily on providing servicing the oil and gas sector.
In recent years, however, it has adapted well to servicing the needs of the emerging renewable energy sector in Africa.
“When we started out 50 years ago, we were a niche market business, focusing on the Oil, Gas and Energy sectors developments, says Pentagon Freight Service MD, Kevin Melnick.
“We’ve evolved as a company, away from only oil and gas energy to include renewable energy, freight and transport, as well as solar and hydro projects.”
The move away from fossil fuels by developing countries as well as the group’s clients evolving from fossil fuels opportunities to adapting to alternative energies, is driving this trend.
This change has seen it add the sort of expertise that would require it to transport large pieces of equipment, such as wind turbines, from a seaport, through an urban area to a wind farm in a rural area.
This kind of coordination takes years of preparation, as it requires specialist project planning and management skills, processing this type of equipment through customs control and also making sure that it can fit under bridges or see if signage needs to be moved, requires route surveying.
An experienced route survey company would plan the route survey, to see if additional roadworks have to be done, or if sand roads have to be graded amongst many other compliant procedures.
All this means is that Pentagon Freight Service provides a complete transport and logistics solution, whether the freight comes from another country or is manufactured in South Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa, whether it’s cargo that is imported or exported or just relocated domestically.
Melnick says the group takes particular care in having the compliant and project skills to facilitate expediting equipment across borders.
“The offices and agents we partner with are all vetted to ensure that they can manage our clients businesses, in terms of customs and excise, logistics VAS and local infrastructure requirements on a compliant basis whilst maintaining high service levels.
The need for the services offered by Pentagon Freight Service is set to grow, given the increasing importance of renewable energy projects on the continent.
This can be seen in South Africa where the country is expected to have about 32 GW of installed renewable energy capacity, according to the National Business Initiative (NBI) Business Decision-Makers Guide: Renewable Energy In South Africa report.
“Investment opportunities for large-scale renewable energy in 2024–2030 are promising. It is estimated that the private market will add around 6 GW of solar PV and 4 GW of wind power by 2030, driven by ongoing market liberalization,” said the NBI report.
