Outokumpus stainless steel mill in Calvert, Alabama, USA has experienced technical issues in all of its three cold rolling lines during the past six months. This has had a negative impact on customer deliveries and increased costs.
While two of the cold rolling mills have been back in operations after repair work done in August, the 54-inch cold rolling line in Calvert is now expected to be back in operations only in the beginning of 2015 after an outage since June 2014. Outokumpu confirms the negative impact for deliveries at about 35,000 tons in 2014.
As indicated in early November, the operating environment for stainless steel has been lackluster with volatile nickel prices and especially the distributor sector has continued to push out orders to next year. While order intake for the start of 2015 remains healthy Outokumpu expects delivery volumes in the fourth quarter to be lower than originally estimated. In addition, hedging losses in propane are expected in the fourth quarter due to significant decline in oil price. Corresponding positive effect in the operative business is expected next year.