About Argos

Argos is one of the fastest-growing oil companies in the Netherlands – in a highly dynamic energy market. Environmental consciousness continues to grow, increasing the demand for alternative energy sources. Argos wants to play a pivotal role in these critical developments.

Peter Goedvolk is the founder and general director of Argos. In 1984, he seized an opportunity to take over a modest oil trading firm in Hoeksche Waard, the Netherlands. The company, Goud, had two employees: a woman who took the phone orders and a driver who delivered the gasoil and home heating oil. ‘I literally went door-to-door to increase sales, all the while trying to expand my company with takeovers’, Goedvolk says. ‘I started right off with a two-track approach that we actually still follow to this day: autonomous growth and acquisitions’.

After a series of small takeovers, he bought Argos, based in Vlaardingen (NL), in the mid-nineties. That was how Goedvolk entered his present relationship with shipping. And he acquired a place on the water. In addition to a growing number of tank lorries, Argos has owned a modest fleet of tank barges and a terminal in the Port of Rotterdam since that time. In a steady tempo since then, the Port Businessman of the Year for 2006 has built a corporation that earned over 1.5 billion euros in 2009 and has a workforce of over 500.

To see more facts and figures about Argos in the Netherlands and Europe, click on the accompanying slide show.