MOST of the work needed to restart production at a giant Teesside steel plant has been completed and the finishing line is now "within sight".

Thailand’s Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) had hoped to restart production at the mothballed Redcar site in December but twice postponed the date it was expected to reopen.

The company, which paid £300m last year for TCP and the blast furnace which had been mothballed in February 2010 with the loss of 800 jobs, had blamed industrial action and windy weather incapacitating its cranes for the delays. It also said that inspections had shown that more remedial work had been needed than expected.

But yesterday it said in a statement that the heating up schedule for the blast furnace stoves had begun and it would take only a few weeks for them to reach 1,200 degrees centigrade.

Phil Dryden, chief executive of SSI UK, said: “We have made good progress on the project during January and over 90% of the work is now completed.

“The heating up of the blastfurnace stoves is a significant milestone in the programme leading to the restart of operations and I am looking forward to us completing the remaining work over the next few weeks.

“The finishing line is now in sight and we will announce the blastfurnace blow-in date within the next few weeks.”

The site in Redcar, in the north east of England, was mothballed in early 2010 after a consortium of companies withdrew from a 10-year supply contract, putting the future of the plant in doubt. The first shipment of iron ore for the site arrived in October as the business, which employs nearly 2,000 workers, is prepared to go into full production once again. SSI is investing heavily in the plant which will produce steel supplies for the company’s factories in its homeland.