Published by: Darina Kahramanova<>
10 Apr 2025 @ 16:31 UTC
Tata Steel Nederland (TSN) added to European steel sector woes on Wednesday April 9, when it announced plans to undergo a large-scale transformation program that will lead to the loss of about 1,600 jobs at its IJmuiden facility, sources told Fastmarkets.

TSN said most of the jobs affected will be in management and support functions.
The steelmaker said it had informed the relevant trades unions and submitted a request for consultation to the Central Works Council, a structure intended to protect employee interests under Dutch legislation.
It said intensive consultations on the transformation program would take place with all stakeholders in the coming weeks.
The program focuses on improving the production process [by] permanently reducing fixed costs, optimizing the high-quality product range and improving margins, TSN said, while confirming that it will continue to work on its Green Steel Plan. to reduce its CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030.
At the end of 2024, the company submitted a draft environmental impact assessment to the Dutch authorities for the Green Steel Plan, which includes replacing its large blast furnace (BF7) with an electric-arc furnace and replacing one of its coke-making plants with a new DRI plant.
The company said it needed to create the financial space for its green steel investments and pointed to the fact that, in its 2023-2024 financial year, its activities were severely affected by delays to the renovation of its second blast furnace (BF6), whichcame back into action in January 2024.
But in the 2024-2025 financial year, steel production volumes recovered to near full capacity at 6.75 million tonnes per year. Despite that, however, the company said that challenging market conditions in Europe, caused by geopolitical developments, trade and supply disruptions and rising energy costs, have negatively affected the company’s operational costs and led to a deterioration in financial performance.
The IJmuiden steel plant has a capacity for 7.5 million tpy of crude steel, according to Fastmarkets’ company information database. The site produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, hot-dipped galvanized and pre-painted coil as well as tin-plated products.
Top-to-bottom transformation The subsidiary of India’s Tata Steel Ltd said the planned transformation would affect the entire company from top to bottom and it was aiming to reduce bureaucracy by using fewer management layers – including shrinking its management board from five to four positions.
We are all too aware that this intended restructuring of our organization will have a significant impact on our employees. We want to work intensively with all stakeholders in the coming period to navigate this difficult path, TSN chief executive officer Hans van den Berg said.
We are working closely with the Dutch government and other stakeholders and are in constructive discussions about joint investments in the Green Steel Plan, he added.
TV Narendran, the CEO of the Indian parent company and chairman of the TSN supervisory board said: This transformation is a building block toward the future [and will ensure] that TSN has the required, robust operational and financial profile to develop into one of the best and most sustainable steel companies in Europe.
Europe-wide steel sector troubles TSN is not the only European steel producer planning job cuts, with the sector grappling with rising production costs, increased pressure from low-cost imports from Asia and the ongoing deterioration of the steel demand-supply balance in Europe, sources told Fastmarkets.
In November 2024, Germany’s largest steelmaker,thyssenkrupp, announced plans to reduce its steel output and cut around 11,000 jobs to adapt to the fundamental changes taking place across the European steel market.
And the UK government is said to be in last ditch talks to secure the future of British Steel, according to media reports, after its Chinese owner, Jingye, announced plans to close the UK’s only primary steelmaking facility, in Scunthorpe, northeast England.
At the end of MarchJingye rejected a government proposal to provide a grant of £500 million($640 million) toward the company’s green transition.
But the European Commission introducednew steel safeguard measuresto support domestic steel production on April 1, designed to limit the availability of imports and support domestic flat steel prices.
HRC prices in Northern Europe have been recovering gradually since the beginning of the year and reached €653.75 ($720.05) per tonne on April 9, according to Fastmarkets’ dailysteel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Northern Europe.
The index averaged €637.20 per tonne in March, well below the €691.99 per tonne average achieved in March 2024.
Sources said they expect the recovery in the HRC prices to continue, although some remained skeptical about reaching €700 per tonne.