Titanium producer Titanium Metals (Timet) declared a force majeure at its facility in Henderson, Nevada, after the company deemed its compact press unusable.
Customers with open orders received notice of the force majeure in mid-September, which came after Timet found problems with the press during routine maintenance, buy-side sources told Argus. Parent company Precision Castparts (PCC) confirmed on Friday that Timet notified customers "on or around" 15 September and that it will no longer operate the piece of equipment at Henderson, near Las Vegas.
Still, PCC did not provide details about what issues specifically led to Timet's decision.
A compact press densifies titanium sponge and master alloys into briquettes that will then combine with titanium scrap to become the initial electrode that producers use when manufacturing ingots.
Supply disruptions have varied by customers, with some reporting push-outs on deliveries by at least four weeks, while others were awaiting more clarity on their shipment timelines. Still others noted that their orders were broadly unaffected given that their ingots had already been melted and were further downstream in the production process.
Timet plans to use its compact press at its new facility in Ravenswood, West Virginia, to supply Henderson's furnaces, with PCC saying the company will try to make the "transition as quickly efficiently as possible" to mitigate supply pressures. Timet also will employ a "redundant press" at its Morgantown, Pennsylvania, site.
