Liberty Steel Newport, part of Sanjeev Gupta’s global GFG Alliance, has begun a planned £15m investment in new and upgraded equipment as it continues a drive to win bigger UK market share for hot rolled coil, used in industries such as construction, automotive and pipe manufacture.
The 180-worker South Wales plant, re-opened by Liberty in 2015 following closure by previous owners, is doubling coil production in 2018 to nearly 370,000 tonnes and is targeting further growth in 2019, aiming to displace foreign imports that currently take around 50% of the domestic market.
In September the firm is completing the first phase of the investment which is the installation of advanced descaling equipment to further improve the surface quality of the product, along with additional automation to increase process efficiency. There are plans to install further equipment in the coming months to achieve more product quality and internal efficiency improvements.
