The firm has big plans for its Corby works which makes the ‘best steel tubes in the world’
Tata Steel is in the process of revolutionising the way it works in Corby.
Their plans will mark the biggest investment in the Weldon Road plant since the 1980 and help protect the jobs of the 500 people who work there for the long-term.
A huge land sell-off will provide finances to reinvest millions back into the site to ensure it’s fit for modern processes and to help it become carbon neutral.
And the drop in water usage as the works footprint has reduced meaning the Eyebrook Reservoir, which was built to supply water to the works at its peak, will be ‘turned-off’.
In an exclusive chat with the Northants Telegraph, Works Manager Gary Blackman has revealed the plans he’s been working on to help ensure steel tubemaking’s future is secure in Corby.
Gary, who worked at Tata’s Scunthorpe site for 23 years before moving to take charge in Corby four years ago, originally started life with British Steel as an apprentice straight out of secondary school.
He said: “When I came here the steelworks was underperforming.
(This iconic water tower at the steelworks will be retained – but the building to the right of the picture is already being demolished)
“I came in as a fresh pair of eyes. Although I had lots of experience in steelmaking I’d never made a steel tube in my life.
“My aim was to come here and look at how we could make things a little bit better.”
Along with his management team, Gary began Project Aurora to make the Corby site more efficient and, ultimately, more profitable. About 50 per cent of the site, including the old West Works, will eventually be sold off to generate a figure that may reach £30m. “We were only utilising 40 per cent of the site,” he said.
(The works have produced enough steel tubes since 1980 to go around the world 5 times)
“We make the best tubes in the world here but we had four mills and we can make the same volume, more efficiently, in three mills.”
Two of the existing four mills are being decommissioned but another new mill will be built and the entire facility will be consolidated to the old East Works.
Some land has already been sold off to make way for new companies including New Cold which started operating last year.
New state-of-the-art tube-making equipment is already on order from Italy and the first new tubes will be rolling off the plant in March 2024.
(Tubes can be produced in a wide range of sizes, thicknesses and shapes)
Work has already begun to demolish the pre-war south warehouse that still sported its camouflage paint designed to protect it from being spotted by planes during WWII.
And new office buildings will be developed to replace the temporary buildings that currently house management and back-office staff.
The Eyebrook Reservoir was built to provide water for the sprawling pre-1980 Corby steelworks. The water was pumped up to the top of Rockingham Hill and made its journey via the clay holes and a series of water towers to the works.
But it’s now surplus to requirements.
Gary said: “It’s probably about 1,000 times over-engineered for a site like this now.
“We’ve just spent a million improving the Eyebrook and we’ll retain it but we’ll get our power and water from pipes coming from the east of the site. We’ll effectively turn the Eyebrook off.
(Project Aurora is helping to modernise the works – including the constrution of a huge new modern warehouse)
The company is already re-using a huge space in an existing mill as its new warehouse where it stores every tube it makes until it’s ready to go to a customer.
Corby tubes have been used in some of the country’s most prestigious developments including Wembley Stadium, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium, the Leicester Tigers Welford Road ground, Ricoh Arena
Designs for a huge new modern cold mill on the site of the demolished building have already been drawn up and will be going before local planners soon.
Gary said: “It’s the biggest investment in this site for generations. It will be a much more efficient operation and it’ll help protect steelmaking in Corby.
“We already have a very well-paid, highly-skilled workforce here and all that feeds back into the local economy.”
There’ll also be a £5 million investment in state-of-the-art electric induction furnaces that will reduce emissions by at least 2,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.
It’s part of the plans to make the Corby site CO2 neutral. Gary said: “This is the first part of our extensive plans in line with Tata Steel’s declared environmental ambitions of becoming net zero globally by 2045.”
The Stretch Reduction mill (SR2) takes 169mm diameter steel tubes and heats them to around 1100°C before they are stretched into hollow sections as small as 40mm diameter with wall thicknesses as thin as 3.2mm.
The mill’s induction furnaces came into operation in 1980 and since then the mill has produced around 2.5 million tonnes – or more than 200,000km – of tubes in its lifetime: enough to stretch around the world five times. They can run at 300 metres of tube per minute.
Project lead Paul Ilko said: “The improved efficiency of the new electric furnaces means we’ll need less pre-heating from the gas-fired furnaces and therefore fewer associated emissions. At the same time, as part of our sustainability commitment, we aim to move our electricity supply towards low-carbon, renewable sources in due course.”
A new warehouse with racking towering overhead has also been constructed in a re-purposed mill. Instead of using overhead cranes and slings to move the tubes, there’s now state-of-the-art combi lifts – themselves part-built with Corby steel tubes – to move the tubes around more efficiently.
