Dear ILTA Members

ILTA President Kathryn Clay

ILTA is committed to providing resources to help you and your company through this challenging time. We know that information about the outbreak and the best response measures are changing rapidly, and we want to help you find timely information. We also know that the best resource is the collective knowledge of your industry peers. I wanted to draw your attention to our resources listed below:

Weekly Terminal Operator Calls: ILTA is hosting weekly calls with all terminal members to hear the latest updates on industry responses to COVID-19. These calls provide an opportunity to brief participants on recently announced accommodations by regulators such as the Coast Guard and EPA. They also allow members to direct questions to the group, either by speaking or posting a question on the real-time chat function. The calls are recorded and are posted on the ILTA website.

ILTA Peer Exchange on COVID-19 Response Measures: ILTA has created an on-line platform to allow terminal company professionals to post questions, respond to posts from others, and to share availability of newly released documents, upcoming webinars, or other resources relevant to the tank terminal industry. You can reach the ILTA Peer Exchange through the ILTA website, or by clicking here.

ILTA Website: ILTA has created a dedicated webpage on its site with links to government sites, industry pandemic preparedness plans and other resources. We’ve designed this page to make it easy for you to quickly access key resources. We will continuously update this page as new resources become available. If there is a resource link you would like to see included on our page, please let us know here. 

We remain in close contact with regulators and other federal, state and local government officials to exchange information, identify challenges and resolve issues to ensure continued safe operations, critical to COVID-19 response.

ILTA moved its in-person EHS&S and Operations Committee meetings, originally scheduled for New Orleans March 31-April 1, online to facilitate peer exchange during the pandemic.

In other developments, ILTA issued a press release on March 23, picked up by several trade industry publications, on the actions and precautions its terminal members are taking “to protect workers and contractors while safely continuing with their vital operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.” ILTA said that (along with its member companies), it will continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust practices, as needed or requested, to protect the safety of employees and contractors, while continuing to provide mission-critical operations. “Liquid terminals are a critical logistics link in getting liquid product, like gasoline, diesel, chemicals and liquid foods, in the hands of the ultimate consumer,” ILTA said in its statement. “For the pandemic, this means ensuring adequate supplies of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel so that emergency supplies and food can be delivered by plane or truck and that emergency personnel can travel to work.”

We issued a second press release on April 1 highlighting how COVID-19 has made clear the critical nature of terminals and storage. “Recent events have made abundantly clear the importance of the liquid terminal industry to the petroleum supply chain,” ILTA said in the release. “Terminal storage improves the flexibility of the entire supply chain and its ability to respond to market fluctuations.”

I also wanted to take a moment to update you on the Annual Operating Conference and Trade Show, scheduled for Houston June 8-10. As of today, we are still on. ILTA continues to monitor closely government guidance and resources, and it will attempt to reach out to our sponsors and many of our exhibitors in the coming days. We know that the conference and trade show is important to your companies and the industry. It’s extremely important to ILTA as well because the event’s revenues represent the bulk of ILTA’s funding.

Thank you for your support, and thank you for all the work you do day in and day out. Please stay healthy!

All the best,

Kathryn Clay