Heat is on as SSI steels itself for production (From The Northern Echo)

Heat is on as SSI steels itself for production

10:22am Wednesday 1st February 2012 in North-East Business News By Andy Richardson

AN important milestone at a North-East steelworks has been reached with stoves being heated up that will enable the blast furnace to fire back into production in the upcoming weeks.

After suffering delays to re-starting the former Corus facility in Redcar, owners Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) UK were delighted to announce yesterday that "the finishing line is now in sight" to resume work at the plant where 1,600 jobs were axed nearly two years ago.

The four stoves, which are gas-heated to about 1,200 degrees centigrade, heat a blast of air which is blown into the furnace during the iron-making process.

The process that brings the stoves up to the required temperature is expected to take a few weeks but plant bosses were reluctant to put an exact time frame for steelmaking to restart.

Phil Dryden, chief executive of SSI UK, said: "We have made good progress on the project during January and over 90 per cent of the work is now completed.

"The heating up of the blast furnace stoves is a significant milestone in the programme leading to the restart of operations and I am looking forward to us completing the remaining work over the next few weeks," he said.

Efforts to re-start production at the site, which was mothballed in February 2010 when it was owned by Tata Steel, have been subjected to delays.

Provisional target dates of December 8 and then January 6 were missed before SSI declined to publicly disclose a new target for production to start.

A combination of an industrial dispute, which did not directly involve SSI; poor weather conditions, and additional work needed to get the blast furnace ready were blamed for the delays.

After making significant progress in recent weeks sources at the plant said the heating up of the furnace was a sign that a return to production was likely to be weeks rather months away.

There are now 1,500 workers directly employed by SSI at the facility which has also created scores of jobs across the regional supply chain.

Family firm Slaters Electricals is one of the companies that has helped to bring the plant back to life.

The Newcastle-based business has worked at the site for about six months, and used its rental fleet to help to temporarily distribute electricity from the local network to the furnace during the rebuild.

Slaters Electricals managing director Fiona Slater said: "It has been a great experience working with Balfour Beatty Engineering Services Ltd and we are very proud of being able to help restore the steel industry in the UK.

"Working to a tight deadline and with a limited access to the site, we successfully completed the task at hand, providing the much needed power distribution equipment to the site.

"The hiring of specialist equipment is becoming a real growth area for the company, and it is now hoped that the success of contracts with big companies such as SSI will help them to further establish their reputation.

"As a local business it also gives us great pleasure in the knowledge that on the day the plant begins production over 1,000 jobs will have been created in the North-East area."