PD Ports poised to shed 120 jobs
May 30 2009 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette
PD Ports is poised to shed around one fifth of its Teesside workforce.
The company has entered a 90-day consultation with staff over the possibility of making 120 redundancies.
The move comes amid growing uncertainty over the future of Teesside Cast Products’ (TCP) Redcar plant, which exports around 2.4million tonnes of steel slab through Teesport each year.
Efforts to sell the TCP plant or to stop a consortium of buyers from walking away from a contract to take 78% of its output for the next five years are continuing.
PD Ports said it was necessary to make contingency plans in case the Corus-owned plant had to close. The Teesport operator has already been hit by declining volumes in car imports, chemicals and gas, while container volumes are down by 12-15%.
Chief executive David Robinson said: “The sad fact of the matter is that we need to get our costs down. (However), there will be absolutely no significant numbers of staff leaving until the Corus situation becomes clearer.”
But he warned that jobs could still go even if the TCP plant, which generates around 20% of PD Ports’ revenues, remains in operation.
“If it is saved in such a way that the slab is sent to other parts of the UK instead of abroad, that will not benefit PD Ports,” he said.
The positions to go are not just manual workers but management and administrative staff at the port and would go beyond the 90 staff working purely on steel exports and imports.
Unions described the announcement as “a huge shock” to the workers.
Fazia Hussain, regional officer for Unite, said: “We obviously knew that Corus would have some kind of impact. We are going to work with PD Ports to secure the best possible outcome for the staff.”
Mr Robinson remained confident about the future of the port and said “every effort” was being made to win new business. “The container side is a very important part of our business. MGT’s biomass plant (planned at Teesport) is also a massive positive in terms of inward investment into the area.”
Run by MGT Power, the £400m biomass plant would generate electricity by burning wood chip imported via Teesport - although the scheme requires Government approval before it can go ahead.
In the shorter term, the port will be boosted by the opening of Tesco’s new 900,000sq ft warehouse on August 17. One of the biggest of its kind in the UK, it will create around 1,000 much-needed jobs and generate additional revenues for the port.
