Tata Steel declares force majeure at IJmuiden

Tata Steel Netherlands has declared force majeure because of difficulties upgrading its cold-rolled mil.

The company has been upgrading cold mill 21 since August to improve surface quality and gauge control, but several problems have extended the outage.

Tata said today this was "putting extreme pressure on the IJmuiden supply chain", and that it cannot fully meet delivery obligations. The force majeure impacts cold-rolled coil and some hot-dip galvanised.

Sources said the announcement could help support prices, as could stronger Turkish demand for coil products, given its reconstruction drive after the recent earthquakes.

"The company deeply regrets the impact this situation has on customers and will continue to explore all options to minimise disruption to customers' operations," Tata said.

By Colin Richardson