Evening Gazette reported that steel giant SSI has been forced to delay the restart of its Redcar blast furnace for a second time.

The iconic date was originally going to be December 8th 2011, but that was too tight a deadline and as more remedial work on the blast furnace was identified, the company committed itself to January 6th 2011.

But now a combination of bad weather, union action and the ongoing enormous workload means the company cannot commit to a new date.

Mr Phil Dryden CEO of SSI UK said that "Following a review of the restart program, I wanted to give this update at the earliest opportunity. We are disappointed that we have not met our target date for completing the work at the blast furnace, but as I have emphasized before, we set ourselves a challenging target and did not build any flex or margin into the program to cater for the issues which have brought about this delay."

He added that "On a positive note, the rest of the elements of the restart program are on target including work on all the other parts of the manufacturing assets, the recruitment program and the procurement of raw materials. I appreciate very much the support shown to us, and I remain confident that we will have a successful start up to the operations in the New Year."

The company has always said the recruitment program was unaffected by the latest change. Under enormous pressure from Teesside businesses desperate for a surge in the local economy, the deadlines were always going to be tough, with work across such a vast area of plant to be refurbished and checked.

(Sourced from www.nebusiness.co.uk)