STAFF at Teesside steelworks have been praised for smashing a succession of production records, as the famous plant reached another important milestone.

News that SSI UK's Concast team had set an all time high, casting 192 ladles of molten metal without a sequence break last month, came shortly after the Blast Furnace broke the plant record for daily tonnage.

The achievements were reached after the Redcar site crossed another major milestone as the nine millionth tonne of steel was made since the plant restarted production in April 2012.

Paul Burke, the Concast production manager, hailed "a great achievement in all process areas of steelmaking" which he said had been helped by increased reliability from the casting machines. "Credit should go to our engineering teams as well our casting teams on shift on how far we have come since the restart of steelmaking - we look forward to the next challenge," he added.

Liam Booth, the general manager for steelmaking, said: “This sequence has been fantastic, demonstrating the strength of the teams and shows what we are capable of when all of the plants are able to work in tandem. This has allowed us to consistently produce high tonnages for a long period and I’m confident with recent developments this is something we can continue to achieve on a regular basis.”

Redcar Blast Furnace set a new daily record when it produced 10,160 tonnes on July 9. This beat its previous best of 9,833 tonnes achieved only six days earlier.

Jason Wildmore, general manager of ironmaking, said: “This is the best daily production in 23 years and demonstrates our capabilities despite some challenging circumstances; well done for the great efforts of the teams involved. The challenge now is to produce these sorts of tonnages on a regular basis.”

Profitability continues to elude SSI UK as the ongoing challenges of the global steel industry make are weighing down on all producers. Global steel prices are now at their lowest level since 2003, and steadily falling, and the threat of cheap imports from China and India has added to a generally gloomy mood across the industry.

Bosses at SSI anticipate that the situation will start to brighten in the second half of this year. In the meantime the impressive production records posted at the Redcar plant offer a fillip to the business and its Thailand-based backers.