Since the mothballing announcement, Corus' focus on Teesside has been to mitigate the effects of the mothballing on those leaving the company over the next few weeks and months.

Through its subsidiary UK Steel Enterprise, Corus has made available a GBP 8.3 million support package to local Teesside communities. A considerable number of job vacancies, including scope for TCP employees to secure new employment elsewhere in the Group so as to avoid hard redundancies, have been identified in collaboration with the Trade Unions and made available to those potentially at risk. The company is working to make it possible for the large number of employees that want to leave as soon as possible in order to realise pension entitlements to do so. Corus is also offering redundancy packages, wherever possible voluntary, to direct employees that are substantially more generous than the statutory minimum.

In parallel Corus has been continuing its efforts to find a long term solution for TCP and remains open to credible offers from third parties interested in providing such a solution. This is necessarily a confidential process, and as a result there has been considerable room for rumour and speculation, but every enquiry has been followed up. The facts that the company has been willing to bear the losses that have been incurred since the consortium's withdrawal and that it is spending millions more on partially mothballing rather than permanently closing the plant demonstrate Corus' genuine commitment to this process.

Corus will continue to be one of the largest employers on Teesside with about 2,500 people at various sites. As well as those retained in the continuing TCP operations, Corus employs large numbers of people at Teesside Beam Mill, Skinningrove special profiles, Hartlepool tube mills and the Teesside Technology Centre.

The company is continuing its efforts to find a long-term solution for TCP that will enable the mothballed facilities to reopen. This task is not made easy due to the surplus in steelmaking capacity almost everywhere in the world except India and by the high cost of importing raw materials and then exporting slab in and out of the UK. For this purpose the company will have to find one or more new Strategic Partners. However, by keeping open the coke making and power generating facilities, as well as Redcar Wharf, Corus has saved upwards of 800 jobs.

The lack of interest to date in TCP from credible suitors is because of the strategic challenges outlined in the “Rationale” section above. Corus has a duty to sell the plant to a credible bidder. As local MPs have stated on air, TCP must not be sold to asset strippers.

Since late 2008 Corus and other UK steel companies have been discussing with government the effects of the recession and the urgent need for government assistance to mitigate those effects. Although such assistance would not have avoided the events that have unfolded at TCP, which were entirely due to the consortium's reneging on the off take Agreement, it is worth noting the kinds of support the UK steel industry has been seeking.

The industry has asked government to:

1. Bring forward infrastructure projects, which stimulate steel demand

2. Improve access to trade credit insurance, especially for steel consumers

3. Intervene in relation to energy costs and security of energy supply

4. Introduce short time work schemes of the sort that UK manufacturers' competitors in continental Europe have benefited from

5. Apply pressure on the banks to increase lending

Throughout the period since the consortium’s withdrawal in April 2009 Corus has held frequent meetings with government, including at the highest levels, to ensure the true position at TCP is fully understood. This engagement will continue as the search for a long term solution for TCP goes on.

Corus has also cooperated fully with the North East Regional Select Committee, which has held an enquiry into Teesside. Written evidence was provided in early January 2010, after which TCP MD Jon Bolton attended the enquiry hearing on January 19th 2010 as a witness. At that time he was the only person from Corus to have received a formal invitation to give evidence.