The people who now own the famous Redcar steel plant have announced that the finishing line for reopening the plant is finally in sight, after plans to open it up again have had to be twice delayed.

The Teesside plant will be operated by Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) and had been intended to reopen on December 8th, before this was delayed to January 6th. A further delay was blamed on “unfavourable weather conditions, industrial action and additional unplanned, arising work.”

SSI UK has now announced that heating of the stoves that will be used has started and will take a number of weeks to reach the 1200C temperature that is required to use them.

SSI UK chief executive Phil Dryden claims that the company are 90% towards reopening, stating “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.”