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VOLUME XXI
September 14, 2023
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April 1, 2021
Luxury furniture maker Wesley Hall suspends production due to foam shortage
By Robert Dalheim April 01, 2021 | 11:39 am EDT
HICKORY, N.C. – Luxury upholstery furniture maker Wesley Hall has suspended all production for the week of March 29 – April 2 due to the ongoing foam shortage. The company will also operate on a reduced schedule for the two weeks following April 2. Wesley expects the foam shortage to ease after the next three weeks. “Late last week, it became apparent that our foam and cushion supply was no longer in a position that would allow us to continue that strategy,” the company wrote in a letter to customers. “Our largest cushion supplier has been forced to close for two weeks, and our second largest supplier is currently working a very abbreviated schedule.”
“We believe that once we weather the next three weeks, we will begin to see improvement.” The shortage comes at an unfortunate time for Wesley and other furniture makers – many of whom have been seeing a sharp increase in demand. Residential furniture orders saw a 27 percent rise in December 2020 from the same month in 2019, and a 15 percent increase for entire year of 2020 over 2019. The shortage began early March.
The two chemicals used in foam production are primarily produced at plants in Texas and Louisiana. Many of these facilities were forced offline by the deep freeze that slammed the region late February. It has forced cutbacks for many furniture makers, including Craftmaster, Century Furniture, and Mississipp-based Affordable Furniture. High Point Furniture Industries announced it would raise all its prices by 6 percent.
Chemical manufacturer EverChem explains the shortage in a blog post. Here’s a snippet: “Because foam is light and bulky, it is not efficient to ship very far to the various end users such as furniture manufacturers, bedding, seating and other customers. Consequently the many foam plants are located close to the end use markets and are spread around North America. “Foam is made using a number of chemicals, but the main two are polyol and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). It takes roughly two parts of polyol and one part of TDI to make foam. Foam plants buy these raw materials and have them delivered by either railcars or tank trucks. A typical foam plant will have storage tanks that are big enough to offload a few railcars (180,000 lbs each) or tank trucks (45,000 lbs each). They don’t carry a large inventory of these raw materials, but depend upon a steady and timely supply of railcars and trucks in order to produce the foam for their customers.
See the full post here: https://everchem.com/flexible-foam-shortages-explained/
April 1, 2021
Foam shortage explained; the end may be near
Posted by Robert Dalheim April 01, 2021 | 12:13 pm EDT
Industrial chemical maker EverChem Specialty Chemicals has explained the foam shortage currently affecting the furniture industry in a blog post.
Because foam is light and bulky, it is not efficient to ship very far to the various end users such as furniture manufacturers, bedding, seating and other customers,” the company writes. Consequently the many foam plants are located close to the end use markets and are spread around North America.
Foam is made using a number of chemicals, but the main two are polyol and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). It takes roughly two parts of polyol and one part of TDI to make foam. Foam plants buy these raw materials and have them delivered by either railcars or tank trucks. A typical foam plant will have storage tanks that are big enough to offload a few railcars (180,000 lbs each) or tank trucks (45,000 lbs each). They don’t carry a large inventory of these raw materials, but depend upon a steady and timely supply of railcars and trucks in order to produce the foam for their customers.There are a few different grades of flexible foam polyol, but the most common is made from three primary raw materials–glycerine (the initiator), ethylene oxide (EO) and most of all, propylene oxide (PO). PO is by far the main ingredient.
There are a handful of large polyol producers with a few plants in the midwest but most are on the Gulf coast–close to the propylene oxide producers.
PO is produced by three companies in North America, LyondellBasell, Dow, and Indorama. There are five physical plant locations, with four in Texas and one in Louisiana.
When the pandemic hit last March there was a lot of uncertainty about future demand. The entire furniture-foam-polyol-PO chain of production slowed to a crawl.No one predicted that the demand for bedding and furniture would increase while people were in lock down. The industry came back in June hoping to catch up for the lost production in that April May time frame. The industry tried to run at 120% rates to make up for the two lost months, but the PO plants can only run at 100%, so there was not enough to supply everyone what they wanted. PO production issues in the Fall curtailed polyol production even further to the point that the producers had to put together allocations for their customers. No one could get everything that they needed.
Then the winter storm hit the gulf coast in mid February. When a hurricane is expected, the petrochemical industry gets prepared and often shuts down their operations in advance, weathers the storm, then gets back up and running safely and in a relatively short time frame. This storm caught everyone unprepared and many plants lost power while they were still running. It’s a tribute to the industry and all the plant engineers and employees that there were no major accidents during this abrupt and unexpected shutdown. Lines in the plants froze. Power, steam, nitrogen, and hydrogen supplies were lost. All of the propylene oxide plants were shut down. It was almost like an unexpected Cat 5 hurricane hit all of Texas in the middle of the night.Restarting those plants first requires the utilities and power. The damage can’t be assessed until services like steam and nitrogen are restored (and in many cases, they’re still down). Then all the lines need to be inspected and damage repaired. The plants will start at reduced rates and may take months to get back up to full rates. Meanwhile, the entire polyol inventory pipeline is empty and needs to be refilled.
The TDI story is similar to propylene oxide except that there are only two domestic producers and two physical plant locations. Supply is supplemented by some imports. Those plants are located in Texas and Louisiana and were also affected by the winter storm.
EverChem posts updates on its blog daily. Check it out here: https://everchem.com/flexible-foam-shortages-explained/
Furniture maker Wesley Hall believes the end of the shortage to be near – three weeks to be precise. The company opted to shut down all production for a week and decrease production for the two weeks after that.
April 1, 2021
Foam shortage explained; the end may be near
Posted by Robert Dalheim April 01, 2021 | 12:13 pm EDT
Industrial chemical maker EverChem Specialty Chemicals has explained the foam shortage currently affecting the furniture industry in a blog post.
Because foam is light and bulky, it is not efficient to ship very far to the various end users such as furniture manufacturers, bedding, seating and other customers,” the company writes. Consequently the many foam plants are located close to the end use markets and are spread around North America.
Foam is made using a number of chemicals, but the main two are polyol and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). It takes roughly two parts of polyol and one part of TDI to make foam. Foam plants buy these raw materials and have them delivered by either railcars or tank trucks. A typical foam plant will have storage tanks that are big enough to offload a few railcars (180,000 lbs each) or tank trucks (45,000 lbs each). They don’t carry a large inventory of these raw materials, but depend upon a steady and timely supply of railcars and trucks in order to produce the foam for their customers.There are a few different grades of flexible foam polyol, but the most common is made from three primary raw materials–glycerine (the initiator), ethylene oxide (EO) and most of all, propylene oxide (PO). PO is by far the main ingredient.
There are a handful of large polyol producers with a few plants in the midwest but most are on the Gulf coast–close to the propylene oxide producers.
PO is produced by three companies in North America, LyondellBasell, Dow, and Indorama. There are five physical plant locations, with four in Texas and one in Louisiana.
When the pandemic hit last March there was a lot of uncertainty about future demand. The entire furniture-foam-polyol-PO chain of production slowed to a crawl.No one predicted that the demand for bedding and furniture would increase while people were in lock down. The industry came back in June hoping to catch up for the lost production in that April May time frame. The industry tried to run at 120% rates to make up for the two lost months, but the PO plants can only run at 100%, so there was not enough to supply everyone what they wanted. PO production issues in the Fall curtailed polyol production even further to the point that the producers had to put together allocations for their customers. No one could get everything that they needed.
Then the winter storm hit the gulf coast in mid February. When a hurricane is expected, the petrochemical industry gets prepared and often shuts down their operations in advance, weathers the storm, then gets back up and running safely and in a relatively short time frame. This storm caught everyone unprepared and many plants lost power while they were still running. It’s a tribute to the industry and all the plant engineers and employees that there were no major accidents during this abrupt and unexpected shutdown. Lines in the plants froze. Power, steam, nitrogen, and hydrogen supplies were lost. All of the propylene oxide plants were shut down. It was almost like an unexpected Cat 5 hurricane hit all of Texas in the middle of the night.Restarting those plants first requires the utilities and power. The damage can’t be assessed until services like steam and nitrogen are restored (and in many cases, they’re still down). Then all the lines need to be inspected and damage repaired. The plants will start at reduced rates and may take months to get back up to full rates. Meanwhile, the entire polyol inventory pipeline is empty and needs to be refilled.
The TDI story is similar to propylene oxide except that there are only two domestic producers and two physical plant locations. Supply is supplemented by some imports. Those plants are located in Texas and Louisiana and were also affected by the winter storm.
EverChem posts updates on its blog daily. Check it out here: https://everchem.com/flexible-foam-shortages-explained/
Furniture maker Wesley Hall believes the end of the shortage to be near – three weeks to be precise. The company opted to shut down all production for a week and decrease production for the two weeks after that.
April 1, 2021
Recticel completes the acquisition of FoamPartner
Regulated information, Brussels, 01/04/2021 — 00:07 CET, 01.04.2021
Recticel is pleased to announce that on 31 March 2021, it successfully acquired FoamPartner, the Swiss-based global provider of high added-value technical foams.
Olivier Chapelle (Chief Executive Officer): “The closing of the transaction went smoothly, and within the expected timeframe. Recticel Flexible Foams and FoamPartner will now be merged to form the Recticel Engineered Foams business line. The new organisation will leverage numerous synergies in resources and talents to promote excellence, grow its worldwide presence and accelerate the commercialisation of sustainable innovations and leading-edge solutions to global markets. We are delighted to welcome our new colleagues into the Group.”
FoamPartner will be integrated in the consolidated financials of Recticel as from 01 April 2021.
https://www.recticel.com/recticel-completes-acquisition-foampartner.html
April 1, 2021
Recticel completes the acquisition of FoamPartner
Regulated information, Brussels, 01/04/2021 — 00:07 CET, 01.04.2021
Recticel is pleased to announce that on 31 March 2021, it successfully acquired FoamPartner, the Swiss-based global provider of high added-value technical foams.
Olivier Chapelle (Chief Executive Officer): “The closing of the transaction went smoothly, and within the expected timeframe. Recticel Flexible Foams and FoamPartner will now be merged to form the Recticel Engineered Foams business line. The new organisation will leverage numerous synergies in resources and talents to promote excellence, grow its worldwide presence and accelerate the commercialisation of sustainable innovations and leading-edge solutions to global markets. We are delighted to welcome our new colleagues into the Group.”
FoamPartner will be integrated in the consolidated financials of Recticel as from 01 April 2021.
https://www.recticel.com/recticel-completes-acquisition-foampartner.html
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