Today, we have the pleasure of meeting Sanal Nair, Regional Director for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal at deugro, who will share valuable insights into deugro’s activities within India’s rapidly growing economy.
With over 20 years of professional experience in the freight forwarding and logistics industry, Sanal has successfully managed a diverse range of projects, building a strong track record of delivery excellence and deep market expertise. Within his 15 years at deugro, he has contributed to numerous projects, shipments and successful initiatives, earning an excellent reputation among colleagues, clients and partners.
Thank you very much for taking the time to give this interview, Sanal. Can you shortly introduce deugro India?
SN: Since its foundation in 2006, deugro India has grown significantly, boasting a dedicated team of over 100 highly experienced professionals in its own offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kochi and Chennai, along with other project offices in Vadodara, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Pune, Bangalore and Kolkata. The company has achieved several historical milestones, demonstrating its commitment to excellence and innovation in the field.
“deugro India has established itself as a prominent player in the project logistics and freight forwarding industry.”
Can you tell us about deugro India’s business focus, and which client groups and verticals you primarily serve?
SN: deugro India specializes in providing comprehensive logistics solutions to a diverse range of client groups and verticals. Our main clients are EPCs and OEMs from all major industries such as oil and gas, petrochemical, energy, renewables, infrastructure and manufacturing. We are dedicated to delivering tailored logistics services that meet the unique needs of each individual client, ensuring safe, efficient and reliable project execution. Our team of experienced professionals is well equipped to handle complex logistics challenges, offering expertise in project logistics, freight forwarding, supply chain management and transport engineering. With a strong focus on innovation and excellence, deugro India continues to build lasting relationships with clients by providing high-quality services and solutions.
What does this strong focus on innovation and excellence look like in practice?
SN: In project logistics, we deal with complex and highly individual challenges, often varying significantly from project to project. Whether it’s oversized and heavy cargo components, demanding transport routes and/or destinations, extremely tight project schedules and/or budgets, or the need to comply with the highest safety and industry standards—any inaccuracy or mistake can have considerable consequences for the stakeholders, the cargo or the entire project. So when we talk about having a strong focus on innovation and excellence, for us this means that we don’t just manage the projects entrusted to us by our clients, but with highly qualified experts individually assembled for each project, we proactively ensure that all of the above parameters are met and that the project is delivered safely, on schedule and within budget, using innovative and effective solutions. A confirmation of the success of our tireless pursuit of operational excellence, innovation and customer-oriented solutions can be seen in the regular awards we’ve won from the annual All India Maritime and Logistics Awards—just recently this September 2026.
Which are the most requested services? Are there any special local services you are offering?
SN: deugro India is renowned for its comprehensive logistics solutions, catering to a wide range of client needs. We have created a niche in the project logistics market in India and have been at the forefront of providing project freight forwarding services. One of the most recent sought-after local services has been multimodal transportation, especially when transporting cargo from one part of the country to another part using a mix of barges, vessels or trailers for transporting super heavy and super-sized cargo.
Today, the project logistics industry is confronted with a variety of challenges—from geopolitical conflicts, trade wars, a worldwide shortage of experts, equipment shortages, infrastructure challenges or the energy transition. What are the biggest challenges you and your clients are currently facing, and what solutions does deugro India have in place?
SN: The increase in coastal transportation due to the government’s “Make in India” initiative has led to an increase in coastal barging and heavy lift vessels for coastal transport. The use of heavy lift vessels in India for coastal transportation brings along with it another set of challenges involving procedures like flag conversion/reversion and crew/vessel selection. And at times, it becomes really challenging to find suitable vessels which can perform this coastal transportation by following the existent coastal transportation rules. But now with in-house assets like barges and a history of valuable experience in such coastal transportation, deugro is a forwarder who can swiftly guide our clients on this and successfully and timely transport cargo.
Another challenge on the rapidly growing Indian market, as is currently the case worldwide, is the shortage of experts with the required expertise and practical experience to safely and effectively manage the increasing number of complex projects throughout India.
However, thanks to its 20 years of local presence, deugro India’s teams have steadily grown into a strong group of multidisciplinary logistics experts with extensive industry experience—supported by more than 100 years of global turnkey project expertise within the worldwide deugro network. In addition, through the successful execution of numerous joint projects, deugro India has built a well‑established network of local partners, equipment providers, and service suppliers. This enables us to successfully assemble unique teams of highly skilled, multidisciplinary experts who provide our clients with comprehensive services and solutions—even amid rapidly growing demand across the country.
What would you say is deugro India’s greatest area of expertise and the most significant advantage you offer your clients?
SN: deugro India’s greatest area of expertise lies in providing comprehensive logistics solutions tailored to the unique needs of our clients. By combining deugro’s over 100 years of global expertise in the multimodal execution of complex global projects on the one side with deugro India’s local knowledge on the other, we are able to develop and offer sophisticated and complex solutions that, at the same time, account for local particularities and limitations. With the increase in local manufacturing and due to the government’s initiative of “Make in India,” multimodal transportation has increased significantly in the recent years. Having performed one of the biggest multimodal transportations in India—a major project involving the multimodal movement of 19 heavy lift and Super ODC cargo units from the west coast to the east coast of India for a prestigious refinery owned by an Indian PSU—deugro India prides itself on having the requisite expertise. With this expertise, we offer one of the most significant advantage to clients in successfully planning and executing their multimodal transportation requirements.
Are there any market and business developments or challenges in India affecting project logistics or certain industries worth being mentioned?
SN: With the increased focus by the government on the “Make in India” initiative, EPC clients are focusing more on procuring equipment and material locally within India itself and thereby increasing the need for coastal cargo movement. Expansions of various government refineries are also being planned for the coming years, and a lot of super heavy lift movements are expected for this within India. So the freight forwarding business is expected to grow within the country.
Can you give us some examples of interesting projects you executed or are executing?
SN: Since its foundation, deugro India has successfully delivered far more than 60 major projects for almost all major industries, be it power, renewables, petrochemical, nuclear, mobility, infrastructure, or oil and gas.
For a major Indian fertilizer plant project, deugro India, for example, delivered various cargo units multimodally via the Indian coast, involving temporary jetty construction and the successful movement of more than 50 over-dimensional and heavy lift cargo components that were moved by multimodal and road transportation covering distances exceeding 2,500 kilometers.
A highlight was the transport of two 390-metric-ton reactors, each over 45 meters long. Both reactors were moved from the manufacturing plant to the fertilizer plant project site using multimodal transportation. Mounted on two separate specialized trailers, the reactors were transported from the vendor to Hazira Port, where they were loaded onto a heavy lift breakbulk vessel. Upon arrival in Kolkata, both reactors were transferred from the vessel onto two separate river barges at the Kolkata Port anchorage for upstream travel along the Ganges River to two different jetty locations, which had been constructed by deugro in advance to receive them.
While many projects were located locally in India, we also managed various international projects in collaboration with our extensive global deugro network—for example the delivery of 130,000 FRT of cargo as part of an energy project and the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France or the transportation of over 130 train cars for the Sydney Metro Project in Australia. Currently we are handling a 15,000 FRT refinery expansion project in Spain for one of our clients, with cargo originating from multiple global locations, requiring managing numerous stakeholders across different time zones simultaneously 24/7 to ensure the effective and timely delivery of the cargo.
Are there any other interesting highlights worth mentioning?
SN: There are many highlights we could mention. Not only is the Indian market developing rapidly, but deugro India is as growing well and developing further as a project solution provider for clients of all major industries.
Against this backdrop, and with the resulting increase in demand for inland waterway transport concepts in India for example, which is furthermore being driven by growing government investment in the expansion of coastal and inland waterways, we can mention that deugro has established dHP Heavylift Solutions Pvt. Ltd (dHP) in India. With its own fleet of barges and special trailers, dHP offers transport solutions along the coast and into the hinterland for all major and project-related industries such as power, infrastructure, sustainable energy, mining and metals, energy, petrochemicals, and oil and gas.
This enables us to offer our clients not only the full range of project logistics services, but also to provide modern equipment for smooth execution at any time, even though there is currently a shortage of providers operating suitable barges for transporting OSHL cargo due to the aforementioned strong economic growth in India. With the launch of dHP, we have now taken a further step in strengthening deugro’s position as a leading freight forwarding and transportation company in India.
A further highlight to be mentioned is surely the outstanding performance of our deugro India teams, who once again secured the prestigious “Freight Forwarder of the Year – Project Cargo” award at the 16th edition of the All India Maritime and Logistics Awards (MALA) in 2026, which was held in Mumbai. This marks our 7th consecutive win and an unprecedented 11th win overall in this distinguished category. Winning this award year after year is a powerful endorsement of our unwavering pursuit of operational excellence, innovation and client-centric solutions in the realm of project logistics. It reflects the hard work, passion and dedication of every team member who has helped to build deugro India into an industry benchmark.
