Rob DiMatteo, General Manager, BTU International

The Balver Zinn/Cobar group has been affected like all other companies in our industry.

Just as we all thought things were starting to get better, COVID developed two new variants. The main drawback for Balver Zinn, being an international organization is the restriction of travel between various continents all of which have differing requirements.

The main issue is logistics getting our metals and chemicals around the globe and delivered to our customers, the cost for Balver Zinn in transport charges in some areas of the world has gone up four fold in the last two years, forcing Balver Zinn to bring forward a strategy of manufacturing locally on each continent, which is now being implemented.

Cost of raw materials is also a concern with Tin prices and premiums increasing faster than at any time in the past, supply and demand factors exacerbated by transport issues are keeping the prices at an all-time high and we cannot yet predict when these will come back down.

We are still visiting customer in Europe, USA and Mexico, where travel restrictions are the easiest to implement, but whilst this COVID continues we do not see ourselves attending worldwide shows until the threat eases off.

Whilst our plants have in the main remained open we are committed to the health and safety of our employees. Therefore our employees are working from home when possible until the situation is more stable, we all hope that the newly announced booster vaccine shows a revival in our industry from spring onwards.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and enforced lockdowns in certain countries, industry has been effectively on short time or closed completely. This has had an impact on all of us, particularly the consumable electronics sector where due to part time working volumes had declined dramatically. However towards the end of 2021 we getting back towards pre-pandemic numbers, but since the new outbreak we see a slight dip in sales but are hoping it will rebound in early 2022.