The 1st Edition of the ‘Tin Mill Products Sourcebook’, published in 2005, reported the extensive consolidation that had occurred throughout the industry, resulting in multi-national manufacturing groups like Corus Packaging Plus, Arcelor Packaging International and the International Steel Group. Since then consolidation of the steel industry has continued worldwide and the above companies have themselves been taken over or merged - Corus is now part of the TATA Steel Group, International Steel was taken over by Mittal Steel, which then merged with Arcelor. Also, in South America, Ternium, now encompasses Siderar (Argentina), Hylsamex (Mexico) and Sidor (Venezuela).

Recently, there have been some notable losses in TMP manufacture. BlueScope Steel (Australia) ceased production, due to fierce competition from cheaper overseas imports, on their Port Kembla site’s three production lines, with a capacity loss of 500k tonnes per year, and, in Europe, Arcelor Packaging International closed their Mardyck facility, which had a capacity of 350k tonnes per year of DWI tinplate. These losses have been more than offset by increased capacity at other plants. New or relocated lines have been (or are about to be) commissioned at Zhongshan Zhongyue Tinplate Industrial Co Ltd (China), GPT Steel Industries (India), Tinplate Company of India (India), Farrokh-shahr Steel Industries (Iran) and Thai Tinplate (Thailand), while other existing lines have increased capacity through refurbishment and upgrading. Also, Baosteel (China) has two new lines under construction, one TP and one TFS, each with a 200k tonnes per year rated capacity, which are expected to commence operation in early 2009. Clearly, much of the new/increased capacity is aimed at the rapidly expanding Asian market. Since 2004, in India production capacity will soon have almost tripled, due to an additional potential output of over 400k tonnes per year, and in China production capacity should, within the next 2 years, have risen by almost 1 million tonnes per year. These changes have resulted in shifts in the main geographic regions of production.

The ‘Tin Mill Products Sourcebook 2nd Edition’ therefore again provides the latest details of some 50 companies or groups, from 40 countries around the globe, operating over 120 production lines, together with a list of many TMP traders and stockholders around the world.