With twenty four hour, minute by minute coverage of the unfolding catastrophe that Hurricane Harvey brought to Texas and parts of Louisiana there can hardly be any one who is not aware of the extensive flooding and sadly some loss of life suffered in the region.
Not surprisingly we have also seen a direct impact on some of our operations in the region however I am pleased to advise you we have no reported injuries and all our colleagues who work in the affected area are accounted for.
It's too early to establish the full extent of the damage caused by the flooding but I can say that we are already restarting operations and will assess the impact over the next weeks to determine what might be required to restore or replace any effected stocks or equipment.
I would like to highlight that during the emergency we have to thank truly exceptional work by some of our operational teams to secure our sites and move products to higher ground as flood waters entered some of our installations.
We are of course acutely aware of the hardship many of our colleagues have endured personally as flood waters entered homes and damaged personal possessions and we are looking carefully at practical ways in which we can help.
Again it will be no surprise to anyone that there are a number of supply issues developing as large sections of chemical refining capacity were shut down at the height of storms and many of these are still at the very early stages of restarting. Infrastructure such as road, rail and the ports are still not back to full strength.
We are of course working very closely with customers and suppliers to try and bridge the anticipated supply chain challenges with intelligent use of our existing stock positions and drawing in supply's from other parts of the United States and where practical alternative sources from other parts of the world.
This is a significant challenge but we have the best commercial resources available working round the clock to help reduce the Impact on customers.
Once again thank you to all our colleagues in Texas and Louisiana for their dedication and resolve in the most difficult of circumstances.
Steve Holland, CEO Brenntag Group
