THE sale of Teesport owner PD Ports could be affected by the possible closure of a North-East Corus steel plant.

Babcock and Brown Infrastructure (BBI) has been forced to reduce its £450m asking price to a reported £300m, according to business analysts, because of the knock-on effect of plans to mothball the Corus plant at Redcar, East Cleveland.

Teesport brings in about eight million tonnes a year for the Corus steel plant and exports a further two million tonnes.

That business is believed to account for about 20 per cent of PD Ports revenues and BBI has admitted the closure would have an impact on revenues and cash-flow. Corus’ decision to close the Redcar plant coincided with the deadline for first-round bids for PD Ports, which BBI acquired in 2005 for about £600m.

Credit-ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P), which is monitoring the sale, believes “it is unlikely that the Teesside Cast Products (TCP) plant will continue to operate at Teesside”.

PD Ports, which also operates a port in Hartlepool, has already told its 600 workers that 120 jobs are likely to go if the plant shuts.

The potential losses from any Corus closure are rumoured to be hampering the sale of the business.

A spokesman for Babcock and Brown Infrastrucure denied giving up on selling PD Ports, and said: “We are continuing with the sales process and will update the market when material decisions are made.”

PD Ports’ debts include a £215m securitised bond and a further £100m of subordinate loans that S&P has warned could be “particularly vulnerable to a suspension of the TCP plant”.

When staff were warned about potential job losses they were told that a loss of work from one of its other major clients, North Sea Ferries – which is taking part of its operation in-house instead of contracting PD Ports – and the effect of the economic downturn, were also significant factors.

A 90-day consultation process began at the end of last month, with the company initially looking for voluntary redundancies.