Corus strengthens UK steel industry with £185 million investment

Corus strengthens UK steel industry with £185 million investment at Port Talbot. Corus, the European arm of Tata Steel said that it will invest £185 million to rebuild a blast furnace at Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, a move that will secure the British steel industry. With the steel industry in Europe showing signs of recovery after facing the worst decline since World War II, Corus, which was acquired by Tata Steel for $12 billion in 2007, has announced its second investment in the UK this week. Corus, Europe's second-largest steel maker, said that it would rebuild one of the two blast furnaces at the Port Talbot steelworks starting July 2012, which will raise its capacity by up to 400,000 tonnes per year. This investment is designed to enhance the life of Port Talbot steelworks for 20 years and position the facility as a producer of high-quality strip products on a global scale at an internationally competitive cost. The furnace's energy efficiency and productivity will also be improved, Corus said. Following this project and the rebuilding a few years ago of the No 5 blast furnace, Port Talbot will be equipped with two world-class iron making facilities, it said. Corus employs some 7,000 people in Wales, around 5,000 of whom are employed in the integrated steelworks business Corus Strip Products UK, based at Port Talbot steelworks and also at the Llanwern steelworks in Newport, South Wales. Corus Strip Products produces strip products for diverse markets in the construction, automotive, packaging, appliance and other sectors and has the annual capacity to produce some 5 million tonnes of steel. ''This is a major investment designed to provide Port Talbot No 4 with a long new campaign life of 20 years. The furnace's energy efficiency and productivity will also be improved," said Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief operating officer of Corus. "This investment shows that Corus believe that there is a strong future for the British steel industry," said Michael Leahy, head of the Community union. Corus MD & CEO of Tata Steel Europe, Kirby Adams, said, ''This investment is a major step in achieving Tata Steel's ambition to position Port Talbot as a producer of high-quality strip products on a global scale and an internationally competitive cost base. As a result of this project the Port Talbot works and our downstream supply chain will be able in the coming decades to continue improving the quality of products and services provided to their UK and overseas strip product customers.'' This investment comes soon after Corus announcing plans this week to construct a new £31.5-million manufacturing plant to produce wind farm structures on the site of its mothballed plant in Teesside in the UK. The new project, which will create 200 jobs, will be developed within Corus' 3,000-acre site in Redcar, Teesside casting products facility that was mothballed in February 2010 after an international consortium pulled out prematurely in May 2009 from a 10-year slab steel purchasing agreement to lift around 78 per cent of TCP's 3.5 million tonnes production every year.