The reconfiguration of petroleum product flows across the region has reduced predictability and rapidly shifted pressure along the operational chain. For SGS Romania, the response requires not only technical capabilities, but also the ability to quickly mobilise people, laboratories and expertise wherever the market demands it.
“The ultimate measure of a person is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)
This is one of the principles that Silvia Pătrunjel, Special Services Manager & Business Process Improvement Lead at SGS Romania, brings to her day-to-day work. In an interview with Energynomics, she explains why an organisation’s expertise is increasingly measured by its ability to connect different specialisations and operate effectively in a changing environment.
SGS already works with many of the leading operators in the petroleum sector. What do clients know about the company, and what do you most often find they are unaware of?
We have often noticed something interesting: clients know us very well through the service we provide to them, but they are not always aware of the full range of expertise we have within the same industry. We may work with one company on laboratory services, with another on inspections and with another on terminal operations, and each naturally associates us with its own direct experience of SGS.
In reality, our activities cover a much broader spectrum of services and capabilities. More importantly, these capabilities do not operate in isolation. One of the challenges we take on is to show that SGS’s value lies not only in individual services, but in our ability to integrate them in order to respond as effectively as possible to the client’s needs.
Very often, what appears to be a specific request opens a broader discussion about processes, risks or opportunities for optimisation. In such situations, it becomes clear that the expertise required may involve not only inspection, but also laboratory analysis, independent verification or other specialisations available within the organisation.
It is therefore important for our partners to know that, beyond the service through which they first came to know us, they have access to an ecosystem of complementary capabilities. Sometimes, the best solution does not come from a single specialisation, but from the ability to connect different areas of expertise in order to address a complex challenge.
In what other situations can an independent assessment of petroleum product stocks be relevant?
Clients’ needs are often more diverse than we might initially assume. For example, a company may hold a fuel stock in a storage tank and use that stock as collateral in a financial relationship with a bank.
In such a case, the product is not transferred, there is no commercial transaction in the traditional sense, nor is there any physical movement of the goods. Nevertheless, an independent assessment is needed to objectively confirm the actual quantity in stock and its associated value.
Our role is to perform the necessary measurements and verifications so that all parties involved can make decisions based on validated and independent information. In practice, we apply the same technical rigour that we use in commercial operations, but in a completely different context, where the purpose is not the transfer of the product but the support of a financial process.
I think this is a very relevant example for understanding why SGS’s activities are difficult to reduce to a series of separate services. Very often, the same technical expertise addresses needs that, at first glance, may seem far removed from what we traditionally associate with petroleum product inspection.
Ultimately, the value of an independent assessment lies not only in measuring a stock, but in the confidence it provides to those who have to make decisions based on that data. And the need for trust and objectivity extends far beyond the boundaries of a simple commercial transaction.
The past few years have significantly changed petroleum product flows across the region. How does that look from inside SGS?
The changes of recent years have resulted, first and foremost, in a lower degree of predictability. We have seen supply chains reconfigured, changes in the origin of certain products, logistical disruptions and the redistribution of significant volumes between different regions. Operational pressure has not disappeared; rather, it has shifted from one point in the chain to another, sometimes very quickly.
The Black Sea region is a relevant example. When petroleum product flows change and additional volumes are redirected towards Romania, the impact is felt not only in ports or storage infrastructure. It is transmitted throughout the operational chain, including to organisations such as SGS, which must respond to increased requirements within a very short period of time.
In situations like these, organisational flexibility becomes one of the most important resources. Teams, laboratories and operational infrastructure are built to accommodate certain levels of activity, and adapting to significant changes cannot be achieved simply by rapidly increasing headcount. It requires experience, planning and the ability to efficiently redeploy resources wherever the market requires them.
An important advantage for SGS is the scale and diversity of expertise available within the organisation. We have specialists who have worked across different types of operations and who can contribute wherever new requirements emerge. This mobility of expertise provides a form of flexibility that takes time to build and becomes particularly valuable when the industry is going through periods of rapid transformation.
Equally important is our nationwide presence. SGS’s activities are not concentrated in a single location, but take place in ports, terminals, storage facilities and other strategic locations for the petroleum industry. This human infrastructure allows us to remain close to the areas where new commercial flows emerge and to respond quickly when the configuration of the market changes.
Ultimately, periods like these highlight an essential point: the value of an organisation is determined not only by the expertise it possesses, but also by its ability to mobilise that expertise where it is needed. And when the industry is put to the test, the ability to adapt becomes just as important as the expertise itself.
You speak about people as a form of infrastructure. What does the expertise behind an SGS service actually look like?
The expertise behind an SGS service never belongs to a single person or a single specialisation. Every operation involves different capabilities, and the value of the final result depends on how well they work together.
There are laboratory specialists responsible for analyses and determinations. There are experts who collect samples, an extremely important activity because the quality of the results begins with obtaining a representative sample. There are inspectors who check tanks, vessels or other means of transport, carry out measurements and calculations, and on top of all this there is the experience of those who can integrate the information and understand the full context of the operation.
When I talk about expertise, I am referring precisely to this combination of knowledge, experience and collaboration. Of course, it is important to have a high-performing laboratory or highly trained specialists at every stage of the process, but the real value for the client emerges when all these components work together as a coherent system.
In many respects, our activity resembles the functioning of an infrastructure. Each element has a clearly defined role, while the performance of the whole depends on the quality and reliability of every component. When all these capabilities are aligned, the client receives not only a technical result, but a comprehensive assessment built on solid and verifiable foundations.
This is also one of the advantages of an organisation such as SGS. Expertise is not concentrated in a single place and does not depend on one specialist. It exists across the organisation, embedded in teams, processes and capabilities developed over time. Clients therefore have access to a network of knowledge and experience capable of addressing complex situations without having to coordinate multiple resources or suppliers separately.
Ultimately, I believe this is one of the less visible aspects of our work. Beyond analyses, inspections or measurements, the real value comes from the ability to bring different areas of expertise together and turn them into a single, coherent perspective that gives the client the confidence needed to make well-founded decisions.
In other markets, SGS also provides services that track the product all the way to the filling station and offer consumers an additional guarantee of quality. Why is Seal of Quality not available in Romania?
SGS has experience with this type of service in several international markets. The Seal of Quality concept involves verifying the product and the associated processes throughout the distribution chain, all the way to the filling station, so that the final consumer benefits from an additional guarantee that clearly defined quality standards are being met. In some countries, this independent verification is communicated directly to consumers through certifications displayed at filling stations.
In Romania, the service has not developed on the same scale, and this does not necessarily reflect a lack of interest in quality. On the contrary, I believe it is also a consequence of the fact that the fuel market has reached a high level of maturity, while the quality of products sold is generally consistent and well controlled.
Of course, isolated situations may arise due to operational factors, such as maintenance issues affecting a storage tank or problems related to the operation of certain equipment. Such cases exist in any market, but they do not characterise the sector as a whole and have not created a need for an additional, consumer-facing guarantee of the kind implemented in other countries.
From this perspective, the absence of a programme such as Seal of Quality can also be interpreted as an indicator of the maturity of the local market. When confidence in product quality is already high, the need for an additional validation mechanism becomes less pressing.
At the same time, SGS’s international experience shows that such services can become relevant whenever market conditions require them. One of the advantages of a global organisation is precisely its ability to rapidly transfer best practices and successful models from one country to another whenever they can bring value to clients and consumers.
Ultimately, what matters is not the existence of a particular programme, but the confidence that all market participants have in the quality of the product they sell, purchase or use. And building that confidence has always been one of SGS’s core missions.
