Tata Steel UK said Thursday it had reached an agreement to sell two of its steel plants to the Scottish government. The value of the deal is not known, since the company is still in negotiations.
The deal involves sale of the Clydebridge and Dalzell steel plants in Scotland. In October 2015, the company announced it would stop its European plate production, which led to mothballing of the two plants towards the ending of the previous year, Reuters quoted Tata Steel UK as saying in a statement.
"Rather than closing the facilities, Tata Steel has continued to maintain them to enable plate production to potentially restart in the future," the company said in the statement.
The Dalzell plant transforms a slab of steel into a steel plate, whereas the Clydebridge facility processes the steel plate.
Tata Steel in January 2016 confirmed it would cut 1,050 jobs across the UK, as a result of falling European steel prices, caused by cheap imports from China, BBC reported.
In addition, Tata had announced hundreds of UK jobs cuts last year.
"When Tata Steel mothballed the Dalzell and Clydebridge plants, I said we would leave no stone unturned in the quest to find an alternative buyer. That is why we established a Scottish steel taskforce and why I am delighted that our support for the steel industry has paid off," Fergus Ewing, Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
