UK Indian tycoon reignites mothballed Tata furnace
British-Indian steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has invited Prince Charles to reignite a furnace in northern England which had been mothballed by Tata Steel, its previous owners.
The N-Furnace at Liberty Speciality Steels in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, is an electric arc furnace, part of a multi-million pound investment by Gupta’s Liberty House Group. It is the larger of the Rotherham plant’s two electric arc furnaces mothballed by Tata Steel in 2015 at the height of the steel crisis.
“Switching this furnace back on, after it had lain idle for more than two years, is a pivotal moment in the revival of UK steelmaking and we are very pleased His Royal Highness is able to share this hugely symbolic milestone with us,” Gupta said. “The occasion makes a very powerful statement that steel does have a future in Britain and that is very good news for the whole of our manufacturing and engineering sector,” he added.
The 800,000-tonne-a-year furnace, which turns scrap metal into specialised steel for uses such as vehicle gearboxes and aircraft landing gear, will now play a pivotal role in Liberty’s overall GreenSteel strategy, designed to usher in a cleaner and more competitive era for the industry in the UK.
It was acquired last year by Liberty, which as part of a wider GFG Alliance is creating 300 jobs at Rotherham and its sister plant in Stocksbridge, as well hundreds more across the UK after a series of acquisitions in the sector. When Gupta bought the business in May 2017, he had pledged to restart the furnace as part of an initial 20-million-pound investment plan to expand the Speciality operation and create another 300 jobs.
Since then, hundreds more jobs are being created in the wider GFG group, which describes itself as Britain’s fastestgrowing industrial employer with 5,500 staff UK-wide.
The switch-on is the culmination of five months’ engineering work by a team of 35 people to repair and upgrade equipment. It will triple Liberty’s capacity to melt scrap into liquid steel at Rotherham, making the company the largest steel recycler in the UK, with a capability to melt over 1.2 million tonnes a year. The firm said it would also move the business closer to its target of installing 5 million tonnes of GreenSteel production capacity within five years.
In addition, restarting NFurnace will enable the Rotherham plant to double production on its adjacent bar mill to over 400,000 tonnes a year.
During his visit to the 2,000worker business, Prince Charles was briefed by Gupta, the executive chairman of GFG Alliance, on progress towards his group’s vision for an industrial revival based on renewable energy, metal recycling and integration of the supply chain.