Corus invest £185m at Port Talbot furnace
Steelworkers in Port Talbot, South Wales are celebrating after Corus announced a £185 million investment in the town's steel plant.
The deal involved the rebuilding of an old burst furnace at the plant, securing the jobs of the existing workforce, whilst creating hundreds of new jobs in construction in the area.
The rebuild of the No 4 furnace at the steelworks will start in July 2012 and it is hoped the reconstruction will preserve the furnace for another 20 years. The capacity of the two blast furnaces will increase by up to 400,000 tonnes per year, as a result of the rebuild.
In 2007, Corus was bought by India's Tata Steel for £6bn and is Europe's second largest producer of steel. The project is a huge investment for the steelworks site which supplies steel for construction, car manufacturing, packaging and mechanical engineering industries around the world.
Corus managing director and CEO of Tata Steel Europe, Kirby Adams, said the project would allow the plan and its supply chain to improve the quality of its services and products.
"This investment is a major step in achieving Tata Steels ambition to position Port Talbot as a producer of high-quality strip products on a global scale and an internationally competitive cost base," he said.
Corus chief operating officer Karl-Ulrich Kohler, told This is South Wales: "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. 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."
Author: Hannah McLaverty-Williamson
Keywords: jobs in construction