STEEL giant SSI is investing more than £30m in a coal injection plant that could significantly speed up production at its Teesside facility.

The investment will allow the Thai firm to inject fine coal directly into its Redcar blast furnace - a move designed to improve the efficiency and productivity of the plant.

At a special event yesterday to mark the latest steps towards restarting the blast furnace on December 8, SSI said the coal plant could also have a big impact on the company’s bottom line.

Phil Dryden, chief executive at SSI UK, said: “It probably has the potential to add $100m of profitability into the business.

“It’s likely to come on stream in November or December next year.

“This is another example of a significant investment by SSI to help optimise our iron-making capability at Redcar, and therefore making our operations more cost-effective.

“This technology is a proven process and is a common feature on many other blast furnace operations.”

He said the firm was looking to improve the efficiency of key areas of the business, including its infrastructure, staff operations and financial processes.

“If this plant started up in the same condition as it closed down in, then it wouldn’t be a successful business,” he said.

Eventually SSI wants to get SSI’s Teesside operation running at full capacity, producing 3.5 million tonnes of slab a year.

It has not produced more than 2.8m tonnes in each of the last ten years.

Initially the slab will be exported to Thailand but the firm is eyeing up other markets as it looks to push production up towards the 10 million tonnes a year achieved in Teesside’s 1970s heyday.

The first 86 of 1,000 new recruits started work with SSI this week.

See Tuesday’s nebusiness supplement for a special four-page report on the Redcar blast furnace.