(1888PressRelease)
May 05, 2009 - The managing director of the division, Olivier Chretien, said federal, state and local government agencies and some private employers in Australia and New Zealand had been stocking up on face masks, gloves, overalls and safety goggles.
There has been a particular boom in demand for P2-rated respirators, which are normally used for workers in hazardous environments like smelters and refineries, but can also protect against the inhalation of small virus particles.
"We've been supplying orders for three times the normal demand over the last week," said Mr Chretien, adding that sales of face masks had totalled 750,000 in the space of a few days.
Gordon McRonald, the corporate marketing manager of 3M Australia - one of the biggest manufacturers of P2-rated respirators - said demand was so high that executives at his company were meeting each day to allocate supply. The 3M respirators sold in Australia are produced in South Korea, and it takes about six weeks for shipments to arrive by boat. Mr McRonald said the first priority was to supply big customers like Wesfarmers that had long-term contracts, to ensure that mining workers remained protected.
Mr Chretien said overall demand for products from Wesfarmers' industrial and safety division had fallen since January, but "not in a dramatic way at this stage".
The division contributed $130 million to pretax earnings last year, up from $115 million the previous year. It was one of the few divisions of the Perth conglomerate that did not give a detailed presentation at a recent analysts' briefing.
"There will be some pressure on the earnings [this year]," Mr Chretien told the Herald. "There is a lot of discounting and pressure from smaller competitors."
He said orders from medium-sized companies had fallen, but among larger customers such as the big miners and construction firms, some orders were up and some were down.
"We are obviously adjusting our inventory levels with demand, but not in any dramatic way at this stage," he said.
###
