US carbon black producer Cabot (Boston, Massachusetts; www.cabotcorp.com) apparently has to put restrictions in place, at least to a certain extent. The company says its coronavirus emergency plans have taken effect to ensure that only personnel critical to production are still working at its European and North American facilities. However, a spokesperson told Plasteurope.com that there will be no allocations, as the company expects to have sufficient capacities to supply all customer requests.

CEO Sean Keohane is anticipating solid figures for the first quarter. The low demand in China between January and March was balanced out by strong order activity in the rest of the world.

However, due to the challenging situation in the next weeks as well as the accompanying insecurity in demand, Keohane has revised the full-year outlook, which had previously not taken the virus pandemic into account. He expects decreases in both sales and earnings in the third quarter, presumably among other things because of the falling oil prices that will reduce raw material costs – see Plasteurope.com of 19.12.2019.

Apart from the initiated takeover of carbon nanotube producer Shenzhen Sanshun Nano New Materials, which is set to be complete in April 2020, Cabot intends to reduce capital expenditures. Dividend payouts, however, will not be suspended.