Rain Carbon Inc., a leading global producer of carbon-based products and advanced materials, announces today that it has initiated a damage assessment at its Lake Charles calcination and energy production facility in Louisiana following Hurricane Laura on August 27. Lake Charles and the surrounding Calcasieu Parish took a direct hit from the Category 4 hurricane, and its 150 mile-per-hour winds left much of the region without electricity, sewage treatment or clean water.

 

"This was the strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana in more than 150 years, and our Lake Charles facility is impacted," said Rain Carbon President Gerry Sweeney. 

 

"During the past few days, we have managed to get our teams into the Lake Charles plant and terminal to assess the damage, and while it is not as severe as other companies are reporting, we have significant work to do to get the facility back to 'normal,'" Sweeney explained. "At this time, it is premature to offer an estimated timeline for the restart of the facility or the cost of repairs. The good news is that we have access to well water and generators are on their way to the plant, which should speed our restart. We are also developing alternatives and workarounds, which should allow us to produce and ship product while repairs are ongoing."

 

Sweeney added that the duration of needed repairs to the plant and terminal, as well as the inability to transport calcined petroleum coke by barge and ship until the region's debris-clogged waterways are cleared, will necessitate that the company declare force majeure on certain shipments.

 

"We are doing our best to develop an estimate as to when we will be able to restart production in Lake Charles, and we are working closely with our customers and suppliers so they understand the situation and what we are doing to minimize the possible impact that this outage might cause," Sweeney said.