THAILAND – UK – STEEL

Corus plans to sell Teesside unit to Thailand‘s SSI for $500 million news

Corus, the European subsidiary of Tata Steel today (27.08.2010) said that it will sell its mothballed Teesside Cast Products (TCP) unit in the UK to Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), Thailand’s largest steel producer, for about $500 million (£321 million).

 The UK unit of Corus said it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with SSI for the sale of TCP unit in north-east England, which includes coke ovens, power generation facilities, sinter plant, blast furnace and steelmaking facilities.

The proposed sale, if successful, would create a significant number of new jobs at the plant in addition to TCP’s existing workforce of over 700 and will provide a considerable boost to the local economy.

Nearly 1,700 people had lost their jobs when Corus, Europe‘s second biggest steelmaker announced in December 2009 that it would close the loss-making TCP unit after an international consortium failed to honour its long-term purchase contract.