Covid-19 pandemic affecting business in India, Europe: Tata Steel

Steel major Tata Steel on Wednesday said the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has impacted its business and operations in India and Europe. As the novel coronavirus continues to spread rapidly across the world, Tata Steel will be reducing operations at some of its sites, the company said in a statement.

In India, where a 21-day nationwide lockdown has been announced to combat the spread of the virus, the company said its mining operations are running normally "but the integrated steel facilities in Jamshedpur, Kalinganagar Angul (Tata Steel BSL) and Gamahria (Tata Steel Long Products) have started reducing production levels and operations in the downstream facilities have been suspended and put on care and maintenance mode." In view of the restrictions on the despatch of finished goods and poor market conditions due to the shutdown of customer operations in automotive, construction and other segments, shipments to customers have also been curtailed, it said. In Europe, Tata Steel Europe is cooperating with national guidelines of the relevant countries and has updated measures to reduce risk to employees across all sites.         The company is committed to continuing to supply steel products vital for society, including or food packaging, where demand has increased for canned food.

"Overall European steel demand has sharply reduced compared to the normal conditions and many of our customers have paused production, including European car manufacturers. Tata Steel Europe has therefore reduced production at some of the European mills to match this lower demand," it said. Tata Steel Europe is currently operating all four blast furnaces at a reduced level across the two steelmaking hubs -- in Ijmuiden in the Netherlands, and Port Talbot, Wales and despatches to customers are currently continuing at the revised levels.

In both the markets, the company said, it is keeping a continuous watch on the evolving situations and is prepared to take swift actions once situations return to normal. Tata Steel shares dropped 1.22 per cent to close at Rs 266.45 on BSE.

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