27th March 2020

Dear Colleagues,

As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, and more and more countries take actions to minimize the number of infected, colleagues from all of our global offices are now working from home, fully or partially depending on the situation of each country. Despite the short notice, all offices have shown a remarkable response to the situation. As far as I am concerned, there has been no critical problem reported caused by the teleworking. I would like to thank you for your tremendous efforts in keeping our business activities at a very high level even in this extraordinary situation.

In many parts of the world, business activities have been forced to slow down or even halt completely for some time. On the other hand, there are still industries and businesses that must be continued in order for people to go on with their daily lives even in the current situation, such as the health care industry and businesses in supply chains of essential products. Needless to say, this includes the supply chain of chemical goods.  We are required to continue our service to help keeping the world supplied with a sufficient amount of medical/sanitizing products and so on. In this sense, I would like to raise your awareness for our social responsibility, especially needed in a crisis like this.  We must do our utmost not to disrupt the chemical supply chain, and we must prove to our clients that we are capable of fulfilling our obligations even under these circumstances.

We take every possible measure that enables us to conduct our service, while also protecting the safety and health of you and your families, as this will always be our top priority. Being your CEO, I am fully aware of my responsibility to maintain a sound balance between ensuring the wellbeing of our employees as first priority and keeping up with business demands.

Let us take good care of each other and stay in close contact across departments, locations and countries – regardless of working at the office or from home. The world is struggling with the coronavirus and unfortunately, we cannot predict what the future will bring for the world or our business. However, I am quite confident that with all of you in Singapore, London, Houston, Dubai, Tokyo, Rotterdam, Busan, Copenhagen, Stamford and Bogota, we can overcome this challenge together.

Thank you again for your great work.

Stay safe and healthy.

Kind regards,
Tsuneo Watanabe
Chief Executive Officer
MOL CHEMICAL TANKERS