Corus, the European steel arm of Tata Steel yesterday unveiled plans to construct a new £31.5-million manufacturing plant to produce wind farm structures on the site of its mothballed plant in Teesside in the UK.

Corus Steel, Europe's second biggest steelmaker after ArcelorMittal said that preliminary engineering work is underway to develop a new facility to produce steel foundation structures – called monopiles – used to secure offshore wind turbines to the seabed.

The new plant, which will create 200 jobs, will be developed within Corus' 3,000-acre site in Redcar, Teesside casting products facility that was mothballed in February 2010.

In December 2009, Corus said it  would close the Teesside unit in north-east England resulting in the loss of around 1,700 jobs, after an international consortium pulled out prematurely in May 2009 from a 10-year slab steel purchasing agreement to lift around 78 per cent of TCP's 3.5 million tonnes production every year. (See: Corus to shut plant in north-east England, cut 1,700 jobs) 

Jon Bolton, Corus long products director, said, ''The development of a new plant is dependent on us securing enough orders for monopiles. Our engineers will be carrying out work in Teesside over the coming weeks to give us a head start on creating a new facility.''

Corus intends to redeploy and re-equip redundant buildings on the company's 3,000-acre Teesside site for monopile production and shipment of the structures that can weigh as much as 650 tonnes.

"This is one of a wide range of new employment and business opportunities, which Corus is working on in Teesside. It also follows recent recruitment at our Hartlepool and Skinningrove plants, as well as at our South Yorkshire and Scottish plants," said the outgoing MD and CEO of Corus, Kirby Adams.

The new plan comes after the UK government approved plans to build thousands of wind turbines in the sea over the next 10 years  to generate 35 gigawatts of electricity, or around 15 per cent of the UK's energy requirements.

''In the UK alone, we estimate that about 6 million tonnes of steel will be needed over the next 10 years to make the foundations and tower structures for offshore wind turbines. We are positioning ourselves to take full benefit of these opportunities,'' said Chris Elliot, director of product marketing at Corus.

Corus has been negotiating with Thai industrial group SSI to sell the mothballed Teesside facility and the steelmaker intends to continue with the negotiations.