Tata Steel signs pact to sell UK plant to Sahviriya Steel

New Delhi, Aug 27 (PTI) Tata Steel's European arm Corus
Friday entered into a pact with Thailand-based Sahviriya Steel
Industries to sell its Teesside Cast Products plant in the UK
for about USD 500 million.
"Corus UK Ltd and Sahaviriya Steel Industries Public
Company Ltd today (Friday) signed a Memorandum of
Understanding which sets out the scope of a potential
transaction whereby SSI would acquire from Corus the Teesside
Cast Products (TCP) business in a transaction valued at
approximately USD 500 million," Tata Steel said in a statement
here.
Tata Steel said that the deal, if successfully concluded,
is expected to 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.
"The assets covered by the MoU include the Redcar and
South Bank coke ovens, TCP's power generation facilities and
sinter plant, the Redcar Blast Furnace and the Lackenby
Steelmaking facilities," it added.
Corus MD and CEO Kirby Adams said, "We are very pleased
to announce this significant progress in our long-held
objective to sell the TCP assets to a strategic industry
investor.
"This is the first of several steps required to reach a
definitive sale agreement in the coming months which, with the
anticipated co-operation of Government, employee
representatives and the North East community, should result in
the restart of steelmaking on Teesside in the first half of
2011."
A sale agreement would also result in Corus and SSI
operating Redcar Wharf (TCP's bulk terminal) as a joint
venture, giving Corus the flexibility to use Teesside to serve
its other steelmaking operations, while also meeting SSI's
requirements on Teesside, it added.
SSI President Viriyaprapaikit said, "For the past year we
have held very constructive negotiations with Kirby Adams and
the Tata Corus team and we look forward to engaging with all
stakeholders in the same spirit of co-operation to secure a
final agreement."
Tata Steel added that Corus and SSI will continue their
negotiations, as well as holding talks with trade unions and
the Government in coming weeks and months with the aim of
finalising the terms of a sale agreement as soon as possible.
TCP was partially mothballed last year after a consortium
of buyers broke an offtake contract with the plant last year.
PTI