As flood waters from Hurricane Harvey begin to recede in east Texas, Baton Rouge industrial services companies with operations in that area are beginning to assess the damage.
It’s going to be a while before they know exactly what they’re up against.
Turner Industries has facilities in Houston, which is still partially underwater, and Beaumont, which remains cut off from Interstate 10 and is without running water. The company also does contract work at plants in flood-ravaged Port Arthur.
“Everybody’s trying to get back into the plants right now,” says Turner Industries Chairman & CEO Roland Toups, who was meeting with company executives this morning to assess the situation. “But it’s still in total flux. It’s not over yet, so we really do not know very much yet.”
Brown and Root also has major operations in east Texas, and more than 2,000 employees who work as contractors in petrochemical plants between Houston, Beaumont and Port Arthur. Though none of the company’s Texas facilities were flooded, a still undetermined number of its employees’ homes were, as were the plants where they work.
Company officials say at this point their main focus is to account for all their employees and determine their situation and needs. As for the plants: “We stand ready to help our clients in any way we can to recover from this natural disaster,” says Andy Dupuy, presidents and CEO.
Aptim, formerly the capital services division of CB&I, also has operations, major contracts and more than 1,000 employees in southeast Texas, many of whom live in flood-ravaged areas, according to Aptim business development manager Russell White.
Though it may be a while before the petrochemical plants where Aptim employees do turnarounds and maintenance work are back up and running, White predicts those employees will be able to get back to work relatively quickly helping the plants get reopened.
“There will be a lot of house cleaning to do when they open the plants back up,” White says. “It’s a very strategic process to bring it back up—check equipment, check piping, things like that. We will be supporting them on any of those activities that they need.”
Local executives say it’s too soon to say how long the whole process may take. Major petrochemical plants have disaster plans in place and many had taken steps following hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 to mitigate potential flood damage. So in theory they should be back in business relatively quickly.
As it was with the August 2016 flood in south Louisiana, the challenge will be getting their displaced employees back on the job, many of whom lost homes and vehicles.
“Nobody knows exactly what we’re dealing with yet,” says H&E CEO John Engquist. “The water hasn’t even gone down in a lot of those areas yet. It’s a massive massive problem. It’s hard to get your head around the amount of flooding that affected eight million people.”
For its part, H&E has a lot of leased equipment in flood-affected areas of Texas that likely will be lost, though none of its eight Texas offices flooded. Still, Engquist predicts in the long run, the disaster will be good for the local industrial services sector.
“Short-term, it will be a negative for everybody,” says Engquist, who has seen his company’s stock price rise 25% since last week at this time. “But long-term, there will be a tremendous amount of work that will benefit us and everybody. You hate to say that, but it’s true.”
—Stephanie Riegel
