Typhoon Kammuri (Tisoy) Update

TM Duché & Primex Update Typhoon Kammuri (Tisoy) Thursday 5th December 2019

Foremost in our minds, at the moment is the loss of life that the typhoon has caused in the Philippines and the effects on homes and livelihoods of friends and families.

According to the Joint Analysis of Disaster Response (JADE) conducted by the Pacific Disaster Centre (PDC), WFP and OCHA, more than 3 million people are living in areas expected to be seriously affected and will likely need humanitarian assistance.

Out of those, an estimated 1 million people (about 300,000 children under 15 years; 612,000 adults; 50,000 elderly over 65 years) are considered highly vulnerable based on pre-existing socioeconomic indicators.

We are working to ensure we can help wherever possible.

Damage

Typhoon Kammuri passed through the northern coconut growing areas of the Philippines.

Three factories for desiccated coconut and coconut oil production in the Northern Philippines had various levels of physical damage as a result of the Typhoon,

We are working hard on repairs already and hope to re-start some production as early as the weekend, with full production resuming into the end of next week

Our main distribution port suffered a significant amount of damage and we expect the clean-up to take 4-5 days and operations there to re-start early next week.

Ongoing Effects & Market Prices

With many roads still closed or blocked with debris following the Typhoon, we have not done a full assessment of the effects on all the crop areas, but we know some areas have been affected much more than others. Initial reports are damage to 50% of the trees in the area which in turn makes up 40% of the total coconut production in the Philippines.

We expect crops will be affected in the coming months with an initial abundance of materials, with the excessive fall of the nuts following the high winds. This will lead to an initial dip in prices with an oversupply into January 2020

However, the knock-on effect will be felt from February, when the harvest cycle will have been broken and there will be a shortage in the harvest leading to inevitable low production and price increases that could remain well into Spring 2020.