Dear Customer,
SEP have been informed by a number of our tier 1 suppliers that a major tier 2 (raw materials) supplier based in mainland Europe has suffered a Force Majeure, which has led to a short-term Europe-wide shortage of silicone in all its variants, the impact to this tier 2 supplier is anticipated to continue for a number of months and early predictions are that it will not fully recover its delivery schedule until the end of April / early May 2019.
SEP have been working closely with our tier 1 suppliers and after significant effort we hope to have recovered the supply of raw materials by early March 2019; by the end of March 2019 we anticipate that any potential threat to future lead-times have been removed. SEP have also tasked our tier 1 suppliers with offering alternative materials whenever function or product requirements permit, but we acknowledge that this will not always be possible.
In the meantime SEP are hopeful that much of the possible disruption to supply will be reduced due to our significant holding of finished and part finished stock, for both moulded and extruded materials; however, we sincerely apologise for any potential issues experienced in the following weeks due to this event, and will continue to do everything in our power to honour delivery schedules for all existing orders and wherever possible meet any other customer requirements.
Thank you in advance for your understanding.