Investment at 40-year high as Corus ploughs £8m into Dalzell

STEEL giant Corus is to make its biggest investment in its Scottish steel plant at Dalzell in Motherwell for nearly 40 years, creating 60 jobs, to help meet rising demand for heavy plate products.

Corus is to invest 8 million at the steel mill, which will include installing a 3,500-tonne press and handling machine and upgrading the plant's existing press and manufacturing equipment.

The company, which returned to profitability last year under outgoing chief executive Kirby Adams, is also to recruit 60 workers - 11 in Dalzell and 49 at its neighbouring Clydebridge site - following an upturn in orders.

Corus said the 8m investment will more than double the Dalzell plant's capacity to produce heavy levelled plate, which is used to build offshore wind turbines, in power plant construction and heavy machinery, as well as in the oil and gas sector.

Corus is expected to further beef up its Dalzell workforce when the flattening press is commissioned in summer 2011.

Colin Timmins, plant manager at the Dalzell and Clydebridge steelworks, said it was the biggest investment in the site in nearly four decades.

He said: "The economic conditions affecting the steel industry last year were extremely tough and we had to make some difficult decisions to weather the storm.

"Steel demand is not back to what it was before the recession, but Corus has been working hard to target new markets and this investment in both people and equipment will help us to take advantage of the strengthening demand we are seeing in a number of sectors."

Adams caused controversy earlier this year with the mothballing of Corus's big plant at Redcar on Teeside with the loss of hundreds of jobs.