Tata Steel boosting capacity at UK facility

Tata Steel has invested a total of £8.5 million to ramp up capacity at its UK structural steel distribution site at Redcar, Teesside, and has completed a second phase development at the centre that has a warehouse and a modern stocking facility.

Teesside Service Centre, which is close to the company's Teesside Beam Mill, is the only steel sections processing facility in the UK that is backed up by an adjacent production facility.

Following installation of the last of the new processing equipment due on site, Tata Steel's plant at Teesside, UK is looking to surpass its nominal 170,000 tonnes per year capacity in order to support increasing customer demand.

Teesside Service Centre offers cutting-to-length, shot-blasting and priming (colour-coating). The centre's entire operation is also fully compliant with all the new construction products regulations, including CE markings.

The centre has an extensive product range, including structural hollow sections, and serves a wide variety of construction and infrastructure projects from new schools, hospitals, sports complexes and large-scale distribution depots to iconic buildings.

The Teesside centre, which employs 94 people, distributes steel from the Teesside Beam Mill as well as Tata Steel's sections mill in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire and the tube mills in Corby, Northamptonshire.

''We have established Teesside Service Centre to be able to offer customers a uniquely flexible service,'' Ian Beveridge, director, Construction Structures, Tata Steel, said in a statement.

''Furthermore, the investment we have made in logistics, new handling and processing equipment mean we are able to offer a product and delivery service with unrivalled speed and efficiency. That all adds up to Teesside Service Centre being the leading distribution facility in the UK and the benchmark in our industry.''

According to the company, the latest developments have involved opening up another warehouse and installing a high-specification shot-blaster and new heavy sections sawing capacity.