Orbia: Protecting continuity from mine to market
Global supply chains leave little room for disruption. That can pose a challenge when people rely on your products for essential needs every day, from the air they breathe to the water they drink.
Orbia meets this challenge head-on.
For the global sustainable solutions company, protecting personnel and in turn continuity calls for clear and sustained risk prevention. Orbia partnered with FM to elevate its strategy.
Within the first two years of becoming an FM client, Orbia has closed more than 50 risk improvement recommendations. The speed of implementation comes from Orbia’s proactive approach in working with FM to identify potential risks and ensure they are remediated before they impact customer commitments.
Being there for customers, 24/7
Orbia operates across five different businesses tied to crucial supply chains, with production sites for its Fluor & Energy Materials business and Polymer Solutions business insured by FM. Fluorine produced by Orbia plays a central role in refrigerants, battery materials and medical inhalers. Polymer materials enable water and wastewater treatment systems, building infrastructure, food production and household applications from flooring to window profiles. Control and continuity are essential.
“If we go down, it’s not just us; it’s the people who depend on our products every day,” said Orbia EVP & CFO Jim Kelly. “We don’t ever want to have to tell a customer we can’t supply them at the moment.”
Collaboration brings clarity
Orbia business leaders approach property risk with a preference for direct visibility into site conditions rather than relying solely on reports or assumptions. Before discussing policy terms, FM engineers visited Orbia sites to understand the physical assets, protection measures and operating realities, and to identify where exposure was concentrated across the portfolio.
Orbia Director of Risk Management & Insurance Brian Merkley immediately recognized the proactive approach. “FM’s team pointed out both strengths and opportunities for improvement,” he said. “A year before binding the program, we knew what we wanted to accomplish together.”
Turning insight into action
With implementation underway, attention went first to Orbia’s fluorine production, including its Las Cuevas fluorspar mine in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The site is the largest fluorspar operation in North America and sits at the very beginning of a production chain that leads to fluorine-based chemicals used in an array of essential products. Orbia’s Polymer Solutions facilities, which account for the largest share of sites and insured value with FM, are also driving a significant portion of Orbia’s risk improvement progress. Across those operations, disciplined mechanical integrity, maintenance and fire protection practices strengthen continuity at scale.
“FM brings an additional set of eyes and perspectives,” Merkley said. “They look at loss history, their experience with other clients and their knowledge of a particular industry or process to identify risk improvements that really make a difference.”
Orbia’s risk improvement initiatives happen far from public view. But the impact hits close to home. Orbia Senior Manager, Risk Management & Insurance Sofia Samperio emphasizes how Orbia protects its sites and in turn the industries that rely on them every day.
“The most important thing is to mitigate risks and not let them happen,” Samperio said. “That’s how we keep our facilities safe and make sure our operations can keep running.”
At one location, a recommendation to physically separate transformers required adjustment once the team reviewed the available footprint and equipment layout. Engineers worked through alternatives that achieved the same fire protection intent while fitting the site’s configuration and allowing operations to continue safely.
Maintaining momentum
Orbia’s site leaders translate recommendations into specific plans to complete improvements. They share their progress through regular check-ins with FM engineers who know the facilities and the assets involved. Alignment comes through dialogue and repetition, not instruction.
Risk improvement also requires investment. Over the last three years, Orbia committed more than US$800 million to strengthening protection across its operations, placing risk prevention and reliability at the center of how the business operates.
Looking ahead
Orbia’s fluorine production supplies steel and aluminum manufacturing, energy storage and advanced materials used across electronics, transportation, commercial buildings and food distribution. The upstream materials feed industries where abstract risk can quickly become real-world impact.
“Steel mills, aluminum manufacturers and refrigerant gases for grocery stores, commercial buildings and automobiles all rely on our fluorine supply,” Kelly said. “More than two-thirds of inhalers in the marketplace use Orbia fluorine.”
For Kelly, risk improvement enables stability, tying directly to strategy and delivery. “Virtually everything in the world involves chemistry,” he said. “That's why we're aiming for the platinum standard of protection rather than just the gold.”