Friday, May 20, 2011

Tata Steel to close blast furnace at Scunthorpe


Tata Steel is likely to close one of the blast furnaces and a rolling mill at its Scunthorpe works in a £400 million restructuring of its long products division in the UK, Steel Business Briefing has learnt from industry sources.

The site currently has four blast furnaces, with three operating and one held in reserve. Each has a capacity of about 1m tonnes/year.

Tata is also closing its Scunthorpe bloom and billet mill, as almost all its billet can now be produced through the continuous casting route. This will have an impact for some customers as certain qualities of billet will not be available from Scunthorpe. The rolling mill has a theoretical capacity of over 2m t/y.

The company will also cease rolling of some medium sections, which industry sources have said is a competitive market often under pressure from imports. It may move away from volume products up the value-chain, SBB hears.

As part of the restructuring 1,200 jobs are likely to go at Scunthorpe and 300 at the Lackenby beam mill. An announcement from the company is expected later today.

© Steel Business Briefing 2011.
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