Corus to reopen South Wales plant to meet demand

August 21, 2009: Tata Steel-owned Corus Group plans to reopen its Llanwern hot-rolled strip plant in South Wales temporarily to meet fresh demand.

This 3-million-ton annual capacity plant was mothballed in January this year, resulting in 528 job losses. However, according to sources, the temporary re-opening of the plant next month will not result in any reinstatement of lost jobs.

Instead, the company plans to deploy workers from its existing plants to run this plant on a temporary basis. In January 2009, when the plant was closed, it was left with 850 workers after the job losses.

"This is not a full-fledged steel plant and it can be started and closed based on demand," an industry source said. This plant in Llanwern near Newport is one of Corus' two plants in the region, the other being in Port Talbot. Even the temporary reopening of the plant is not expected to see it achieve its full capacity of 3 million tons in production.

Source: Business Standard