Disruptions Impacting Gas Supply and Supply Chain

Supply chain disruptions have not let up this year and are not expected to anytime soon. Growing labor shortages and higher fuel costs were originally the primary issues but now the supply chain is experiencing issues with accessing Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) that meets industry quality standards. Additionally, feed gas sources are shutting down or decreasing the output which reduces the amount of CO₂ produced.

Unfortunately what we’re seeing now are additional plant shutdowns and product fulfillment issues for many hospitality businesses and within the medical and food and beverage industries. In addition to product cost increases, there are continued outages and allocations due to a lack of supply. This will be exacerbated in the fall when several CO₂ sources are shut down for scheduled maintenance. Ammonia plants are an example of plants shutting down for scheduled maintenance, ammonia production is a key sourcing route for CO₂ production.

Luckily, there are ways to manage and reduce CO₂ spend and mitigate supply disruptions. For operators that are looking to minimize increasing costs and manage allocations during this time of disruption, there are a few best practices:

Continuously monitor invoices to ensure accuracy.
Identify opportunities to manage cost increases although some cannot be avoided.
Order replacement CO₂ early to help account for allocations and delays.
Mitigate accidental CO₂ loss.
- Ensure that bag-in-boxes are always full.
- Check for line leaks.