THE steel industry has been at the economic heart of the Teesside region for more than 150 years.

Teesside-made steel was a driving force behind the industrial revolution and led to the area gaining a worldwide reputation for high-quality steel products.

Tata Steel makes and develops steel products in Teesside for customers around the world. It continues to be one of the region’s largest employers, with 1,500 employees at sites in Hartlepool, Redcar, Skinningrove, and Middlesbrough.

The company has made a number of investments on Teesside recently, including £9m in its Hartlepool plant and £3m in a new distribution centre.

At Tata Steel’s research and development centre in Teesside, preparations are being made to open a £5m national research facility. The new facility has been established by the Centre for Process Innovation and Tata Steel to develop ways of turning process by-products into high-grade fuels.

Jon Bolton, director of Tata Steel’s Long Products business, said the company was committed to its operations on Teesside.

“Tata Steel continues to be a significant employer and driver of innovation and economic growth in this region.

“We make some world-class products in Teesside and we will continue to focus on the future and ensure we can tap into new growth markets - markets which need high-technology businesses to deliver their products and solutions.”

Tata Steel recently announced it was investing in a new facility at its Hartlepool site to make components for wind turbines.

The company currently manufactures high-quality tubes and pipes in Hartlepool for a number of industries, including oil and gas exploration. Its pipes are laid at sea depths in excess of a mile, and at extreme pressures, which provides the ultimate test of workmanship and engineering.

In recent weeks, the company announced two major orders to supply almost 160,000 tonnes of pipe for new deepwater pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, USA.

At Tata Steel’s Teesside Beam Mill, meanwhile, workers continue to make high-quality steel beams for some of the world’s most iconic structures, including the new Olympic Stadium in London

And in Skinningrove, Tata Steel workers manufacture special-shaped steel products for a wide range of industries around the globe, including earthmoving equipment, materials handling, shipbuilding and mining.