A number of UK customers have asked us about the potential impact,on Puragen’s supply and operational situation, as a result of the end of the UK’s Brexit Transition Period on 31st December 2020.
Our assessment can be summarised as follows:
1) Virgin Activated Carbon Supply
All of our virgin activated carbon is sourced from outside the European Union – mainly from China, Australia and the coconut-producing countries of south-east Asia. In addition, we have multiple warehouse facilities and generally hold high levels of stocks of imported materials. For this reason, Brexit will have no impact on our normal supply and delivery of virgin activated carbon.
2) Impregnated and Pulverised Activated Carbon Supply
All subsequent processing of our activated carbon, including the impregnation with particular functional chemicals, plus pulverisation to make powdered activated carbon (PAC), takes place within facilities here in the UK. So again, we predict that Brexit will have no impact on this part of our business.
3) Reactivation of Spent Carbons
Spent carbons are regenerated at our state-of-the-art reactivation facilities located in Immingham, north-east Lincolnshire, where we have separate facilities for handling carbons from ‘green list’ process streams (ie potable water and food-grade applications) and from ‘amber list’ process streams (ie. industrial applications such as biogas, odour control, VOCs and remediation projects). Since we can avoid the need for trans-border shipment of spent/reactivated carbons, we believe that Brexit will have no effect on our ability to reprocess spent materials from UK customers.
4) Mobile Carbon Filter Supply and Servicing
Our fleet of Clean-Flo® mobile carbon filters are engineered and manufactured here in the UK, either by our subsidiary Puragen Icon or by carefully selected third party engineering specialists. Vessels are serviced either on-site at a customer’s premises, or at one of our three UK Service Centres. This important part of our business will also be unaffected by Brexit.
In summary, since all aspects of our UK operations are unconnected with facilities or suppliers in mainland Europe, we are confident that there will be no impact on our continued supply of products and services to our UK-based customers following 31st December 2020.
If you wish to discuss this issue further then please speak with your usual Sales contact.
