Last weekend on September 13, Hurricane Ike impacted the southeastern area of Texas, forcing mandatory evacuation of Solvay Chemicals, Inc.’s hydrogen peroxide plant and sodium percarbonate plant in La Porte, Texas. With raw material suppliers and service vendors also affected by the hurricane, material quantities became scarce, and production efforts faced unplanned downtime.
Solvay Chemicals, part of the Solvay Group— an international chemical and pharmaceutical Group with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium—has therefore declared force majeure and will enforce a 75% allocation program for hydrogen peroxide, effective immediately. This includes shipments from terminals throughout the U.S., including in Cleveland, Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Charlotte, North Carolina; Birmingham, Alabama; Louisville, Kentucky; Salt Lake City, Utah; LaPorte, Texas; and eight other locations.
The company anticipates the allocation program to remain in place for the next 60 days and is now focused on returning employees to work safely and supporting their personal rebuilding efforts. Solvay Chemicals will make efforts to make up the lost production and lift the allocation as quickly as possible.