Covid-19 update on Wrist Contingency Plan

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8 April 2020

CUSTOMER INFORMATION

We are aware that these are very challenging times for most shipping companies and offshore related businesses. My colleagues and I at Wrist want to play our role in helping your seafarers and offshore facility workers, as well as help ensure, that your business keeps running.

We are aware that current restrictions to crew changes and limits to global travel have made it challenging, if not impossible in most instances, to execute crew changes. Crews are therefore separated from their families longer under very difficult circumstances, including concern for their loved ones, often far away.

At Wrist Group – whether in ship supply, offshore, budget management or marine logistics, we see it as our mission, purpose, and obligation to keep the people at sea provisioned and provided with what they need onboard vessels and offshore facilities – our mission "making our customers life at sea better" has never sounded more true to us.

The Wrist Group is very passionate about our mission and I am very proud of what my colleagues are achieving all over the world through a lot of hard work and dedication.

The substantial efforts of protecting our colleagues and ensuring business continuity have since January been coordinated by our Covid-19 Crisis Response Team. This team has been working dedicatedly with information and contingency relating to Covid-19 thus coordinated and supported the front line in the hour-by-hour response to the pandemic as well as planning to ensure business continuity. Apart from the key task of coordinating the protection of colleagues, the different leads in the team coordinate customer and vendors activities, securing supplies, and maintaining liquidity.

We at Wrist are not medical or pandemic experts. We, therefore, have allied ourselves with external medical and pandemic experts attached directly to the Covid-19 Crisis Response Team. We have likewise added professional resources to assist our colleagues in handling the new situation of working remotely. At Wrist, we have ahead of governments globally taken substantial precautions to protect colleagues and ensure business continuity with remote working and stringent management of anti-infection measures for locations. To mention some:

• Minimum physical staff at a location to protect people at the location – we have a global ERP system that allows remote working efficiently and effectively 

• At the location substantial measures are taken to protect staff - extensive shift working, no gathering (including closure of canteens etc.), deep cleaning of locations between shifts, enforced social distancing etc. 

• No travel – including voluntary tracking of personal travel and quarantine 

• Substantial focus on personal hygiene 

• Clear plan if infection occurs 

We are aware that continuity of supply is weighing very much on our customers’ minds. We, of course do see some strain on the supply chain and we spend a lot of time solidifying our supply chain from all angles.

Wrist Group is a strong and solid global company and with our industry-unique global scale and scope, we command privileged supplier relationships and can secure robust supply through our triple-barreled supply chain: locally, regionally and globally. With our unique global footprint, we are able to support your vessels and facilities all over the world.

We are still able to supply in all our 26 global locations and we have been and are stocking up many key products and supplies. We are of course also working closely with our vendors and logistics partners to ensure the highest protection against Covid-19.

We know and understand the high demand for PPE related items. Demand is currently outstripping supply wherefore we are not always able to deliver at the specific date and time. However, due to our privileged supplier relationships, we do have access to supply.

We are likewise within most food categories seeing price inflation, some substantial, wherefore we see increased price levels.

We have a global heat map in place for our 26 supply sites and so far the scale and scope of our business have allowed us to handle what is a labor-intensive and unpredictable situation.

We also appeal to you to ensure the working process between us is as efficient and effective as possible:

• Place orders as early as at all possible allowing us to both ensure supply as well as properly plan the logistics supply chain. We will mostly manage, however, the earlier the better so we can supply your seafarers and offshore workers as they deserve under these challenging circumstances
  
  
• Place as many flat orders as possible
  
  
• Assist us to the extent possible in ensuring that terminals allow us to bring provisions and stores alongside vessels
  
  
• Assist in ensuring government bodies understand the key role our industry plays in the global vessel supply chain and thus allow us to source, consolidate and supply vessels and offshore facilities

Cash flow remains paramount during these challenging times and we remain steadfast in ensuring our long-term financial viability. Both customers and suppliers have an interest in ensuring a stable and efficient supply chain, and thus is it important that all customers (and vendors) keep and comply with the already agreed payment terms.

With the contingency plan and measures initiated we are focusing on the health and safety of our colleagues and at the same time the continuous supply and service to our customers.

With these measures, we also wish to assist public health authorities in their treatment of the virus by doing what we can to minimize the spread of the Covid-19 and react accordingly in case of contamination cases.

Your teams are the heroes of global trade and energy production. We want to be your teams’ heroes by providing them what they need onboard vessels and offshore facilities to the absolute best of our ability.

I thank you for the faith you show us by placing your business with us. I also have the hope that during and past this crisis, we may discover new opportunities together and new ways of working together.

Kind regards,

Jens Holger Nielsen
Group CEO
Wrist Ship Supply

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