The Inventory Adhesive Crisis Continues
The freezing weather from February in Texas is still affecting the flow of polymer and finished adhesives in May.
“But Joe, how can that be?!”
The flow and processing of chemicals that start as refined oil in Texas and end up as a drum/tote of adhesive on your dock is apparently very long, very complicated, and very fragile.
Over the past 10 weeks, I have made countless phone calls to dozens of my supplier contacts. Here are just some of the expatiations I have received:
- Texas
- Lack of preparation and planning
- Three days of freezing temperatures
- Severe damage to equipment
- Assessment of damage
- Repairs
- Start-up issues
- Slowly ramping up
- Rail car delays
- I hope to receive clairity ASAP on why it normally takes three weeks for a rail car to go from Texas to Ohio, and why it now is taking over four weeks
- Shortages of nearly every critical raw material necessary to manufacture polymers
- Chemical processing plants do not like intermittent starts and stops—this is resulting in slow production, downtime, and quality issue
- Shortages of tankers and totes
- A completely empty pipeline
The current situation
Currently, we are operating in stages three, four, and five of this crisis. Material remains in short supply and under strict allocation. Shipments of material that are being produced are being delayed due to shortages of tankers and totes. Inventories across the board have been depleted including chemical processing plants, polymer plants, HAR inventories, and your normal inventory levels.
This past Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, we received, processed, packaged, and shipped 9,000 gallons of polymer in three days. Our next tankers come today.
Thank you for your willingness to work with us!
We have survived this crisis to date because of the close and personal relationship we have with so many of you and your willingness to work with us. Thank you! While things will continue to get gradually better, I am told this will continue through July. We promise to continue to manage this crisis until our storage tanks and your shelves are filled with HAR Adhesives once again!
Our relationship with you and your business means everything to us. Thank you for your understanding, support, and continued cooperation.
Joe Cerino
President
A summary of the Texas Crisis of 2021
In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about as a result of three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10 to 11, 13 to 17, and 15 to 20. The result was a massive electricity generation failure in the state of Texas causing shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days.
Although Texas government officials initially blamed the outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels, inadequately winterized natural gas equipment was the primary cause. Also, Texas had isolated its power grid from the two major power grids to avoid federal oversight and deregulate its energy sector, making it difficult for the state to import electricity from other states.
The crisis drew much attention to the state's lack of preparedness for such storms, and to a report from U.S. Federal regulators ten years earlier that had warned Texas its power plants would fail in sufficiently cold conditions. Damages from the blackouts were estimated at $195 billion, making them the costliest disaster in Texas history. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the Texas power grid was "seconds or minutes away" from complete failure when partial grid shutdowns were implemented.
Readers are invited to use the links below to find and contact a local adhesives representative that can help with your company's industrial adhesives needs: HAR Adhesive Technologies has a presence in seven distinct states, uniquely focused on serving the adhesives, adhesive application, and equipment needs of each region in: Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia