Corus chief to meet consortium
CORUS chief Kirby Adams will fly to Seoul to meet members of the international buying consortium that walked out on Teesside Cast Products, leaving 2,000 jobs in jeopardy.
The meeting - believed to be scheduled for this week - is being seen as a significant step by the steel boss, who has previously insisted that Corus would see the members in court.
Both Mr Adams and the four international firms that made up the buying consortium - Marcegaglia, Dongkuk, Duferco and Ternium - have come under increasing pressure from the British government and local MPs to reopen negotiations and possibly pave the way for a sale of the plant to two of the companies involved.
News of the South Korean trip emerged following discussions last night between Mr Adams, Tory business spokesman Ken Clarke, his shadow cabinet colleague, Middlesbrough born Greg Clark, and parliamentary candidate for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Paul Bristow.
Mr Bristow called on the government to "sweeten the deal for Corus" and said his colleagues in the House would be supporting an early day motion tabled by sitting MP, Labour’s Ashok Kumar today for government action.
Mr Adam’s visit to Dongkuk’s headquarters follows hard on the heels of Redcar Labour MP Vera Baird’s trip to Italy to meet the man leading the consortium. Antonio Marcegaglia’s offer to buy the TCP plant may yet prove the best long-term solution to Redcar’s problems, but the legal stand-off, which has already seen Corus in court twice to enforce its offtake agreement, has complicated the sale. A memorandum of understanding between the companies remains in force until the end of June.
The plant, which was less exposed to the collapse in the world steel market and consequential job losses, thanks to a guaranteed offtake, agreed to cut production by a third last year in response to a growing stockpile of steel which consortium members could not shift. As a result, it discovered it could produce highly specialised product in ways not previously thought possible. Over the past three years, it has invested heavily in upgrading facilities, leaving it with some of the most advanced coke ovens in the country, and generous wharf capacity served by a dedicated rail head, all of which make the plant highly saleable in normal market conditions. Its problem is demand for steel.
Mr Bristow said: " It would be good to see the government sweetening the deal for Corus."
A first step, he suggested, would be for it to commit to buying British steel for publically funded projects, including the Olympic stadium and Crossrail.
" If we want to see a viable future for steel making on Teesside, buying British is really important. We cannot have huge Government contracts buying from abroad if you want steel making on Teesside," said Mr Bristow. "That’s a message that came across loud and clear from Corus and we’re going to see what pressure we can exert to do that."
But he insisted he was not in the business of political point scoring.
"It’s not a party political issue. It's too important for that. We have all got to get behind it," he said.
Rival sitting MP Ashok Kumar's Early Day Motion has already been signed by a number of cross bench colleagues, backing his call for the government to do everything it can to support Corus management and workforce.
Mr Kumar said he wanted to see the commitment on Teesside matched by the government "so we can all be pulling in the same direction".
He already has a meeting planned with the latest senior board member for Corus parent company Tata Steel .. " I intend to reassure him that Teesside can be the jewel in the crown for Corus in the UK if it is given the backing it needs," he said.
