THE iron and steel-making plant at Redcar has hit the two million tonnes production target less than a year after being fired up again.

Thai company Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) paid £300m for the former Teesside Cast Products site in Redcar, which had been mothballed by Indian industrial giant Tata, and started production again last April.

Phil Dryden, chief executive of SSI UK, said: “This is another important milestone for the plant which continues to operate reliably and is a credit to all of our employees and contract personnel who are committed to its success.

“We are looking forward to a further significant ramping-up of production rate during the course of 2013 after the coal injection project starts up.

“It’s really important that we now demonstrate the potential of this business to our parent company and all of the stakeholders who have supported us during the past year.”

SSI UK has a capacity to produce 3.6 million tonnes of slab per annum when it is running to full capacity. Parent company SSI has annual hot- rolling capacity of four million tonnes.