Teknor Apex is concerned for our customers and suppliers in and around the Gulf Coast area being impacted by Hurricane Laura; Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm is expected to further weaken becoming a tropical storm later today as it tracks from Louisiana into Arkansas. We are currently in the process of reaching out to our trade partners in and around these areas to access the state of our supply chain.
Hurricane Laura’s impact on the Petrochemical Industry as a whole is still being evaluated and it is too soon to provide concrete information on the totality of the storm’s impact. Teknor Apex has a Hurricane Risk Mitigation Strategy that was enacted as is done every year with our key suppliers; moving buffer stocks in and out of hurricane prone regions. We are contacting all our major suppliers within the affected areas to ensure their employees and their sites are doing well. We are also proactively assessing our own days of supply of raw materials from suppliers within the affected zones. Where we have opportunities to source from alternate suppliers, we have either done so or are in the process of doing so.
We are engaged with our transportation networks, over the road carriers and rail providers to understand the challenges in navigating in and around the affected areas. The storm surge could spread up to 30 miles inland in southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. We are routing our freight away from the area and not always able to select the fastest direct route normally utilized. This type of storm is very impactful on the transportation market as it causes both a lack of ability to move freight during the storm and after, due to a large influx of freight moving through that same market. As a result, some customers may see a delay in delivery and transit times. Hurricane Laura is having an effect on seaports in Houston and Beaumont, which closed to most ships and personnel before Laura made landfall Wednesday night, which could extend through Thursday or Friday.
Long term, pending how long it takes to recover, the storm could potentially disrupt supply availability of key feedstocks as buffer stocks are depleted along the supply chain. We are actively doing all we can to minimize any disruption in supply to our customer base.
As always, we strive for proactive communications to our valued customers. We will continue to send updates to our customers once we have more information on total impact.
Contact: Laura Smith, Director, Customer Service & Logistics