2021_digital_v2_Chemical Directory 2021 WEB

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More immediately, the COVID-
19 pandemic has had massive
impacts on supply chains
around the world. How have
you reacted to it?
Oh, where to start…?! COVID-19 has
obviously been a truly terrible situation
and we all hope that we are through this
stage as soon as possible. Regarding the
business side, the first effect was a
downturn in business. As many industries
will testify, there was a closing of almost
all activity for the first four to six weeks,
then some businesses restarted sooner
than others. The Government has helped
via the furlough scheme and other
means, but for some, such as hospitality,
the situation remains dreadful.
As a company that is strongly involved
with importing the biggest situation we
are faced with astronomical increases in
the cost of importing. This has increased
four-fold since last autumn.
There are many reasons why the rates
are so high but a key one is that there are
thousands of shipping containers with
COVID-related equipment, such as masks
and PPE, sitting in docks or third party
warehouses all around the world. They
are not being returned to the ports of
origin and are effectively out of service.
The knock-on effect is that, with a limited
number of containers available, the
shipping lines have increased their prices.
Furthermore, the blockage incident in
the Suez Canal in March closed one of
the world’s busiest shipping lanes and
delayed hundreds of ships, each carrying
thousands of containers. When it
reopened, the sudden arrival of the
delayed vessels triggered new congestion
at European hubs like Rotterdam and
Antwerp; the UK’s main port at Felixstowe
was forced to push away arriving ships,
which, in some circumstances, didn’t
return for up to three months!
Another COVID-linked issue is the
restrictions it imposes. Social distancing
requirements among those unloading,
repacking and repalletising at the ports
restricts them from working together. This
obviously hinders the effectiveness of
logistics. There has also been a shortage
of lorry drivers, particularly last summer at
the height of lockdown, when some
tested positive for COVID and had to selfisolate
and be away from work for 14
days, further aggravating the backlog.
Unfortunately, I don’t see the situation
returning to any sense of normality until
early next year - especially as from
September there will be an increased
demand for container space as products
will be shipped to arrive in time for
festive season.
And finally, what’s new at Pearl?
Over the course of the past 12 months
during the COVID pandemic, while we
largely could not visit companies, I
decided to look into some of the areas of
the business that we felt could benefit
from an overhaul.
The first issue for us to tackle was our
warehousing. We use external
warehousing rather than our own but we
felt that the flexibility of what we were
given was not fitting with our current
demands. Therefore, we moved into two
new warehouses, both local to our main
office, which is also helpful should the
needs arise to view stock or discuss any
customer requirements we have with
these warehouses.
The first warehouse is used for our
palletised dry goods. Moving to this
particular site was key to our
development because it offered us some
key functions that we didn’t have directly
under our control previously. These were
a.m.- or p.m.-specific, same day, pre-10
a.m., time-specific and tail lift deliveries,
amongst the standard options. They also
use their own online portal for booking
deliveries which speeds up this process
and we can also track these deliveries
online too.
The second site is used to store some
of our wet products, such as acetic acid,
hydrochloric acid and peracetic acid,
but it can accommodate filling IBCs from
tankers too, which is something we could
not offer previously. It also stores some of
our dry goods.
The next issue that I wanted to look at
was our website. This was quite an
exhausting task, mainly because we had
not revamped it for a number of years.
The new version was launched in the
spring and is already proving to be
valuable with new enquiries but, most
importantly, it is user-friendly.
The final new addition to Pearl
Chemicals - for now, anyway - is a new
product. As previously stated, we are
always looking to add new products to
our portfolio and, after a period of
negotiations, we are delighted to
announce that we have become the
UK’s sole distributor for one of China’s
larger oxalic acid producers. As
always, we will continue to add new
products to our portfolio
Contact:
Ritchie Dee
Managing Director
Pearl Chemicals Ltd.
Tel: +44 1785 819747
Email: r.dee@pearlchem.co.uk
Web: www.pearlchem.co.uk
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