NEW DELHI: Tata Steel, one of the world’s biggest steelmakers, announced yesterday that it has won a contract to supply rail track to Britain’s railway infrastructure operator Network Rail for at least five more years.
Mumbai-based Tata Steel said in a statement that Network Rail plans to source over 95 percent of its rail from Tata Steel until 2019, with the option to extend the deal until 2024. The announcement comes as Tata Steel, which bought Anglo-Dutch steel giant Corus for $13.7bn in 2007, has been struggling to improve its European unit’s performance in the face of the eurozone debt crisis.
Tata Steel is the current supplier of rail to Network Rail, which runs and maintains Britain’s extensive rail infrastructure, and loss of the contract could have put its Scunthorpe plant in Britain in peril.
The contract could see Tata Steel, which employs 18,500 people in Britain, supplying more than a million tonnes of rail for the nation’s passenger and freight lines, the statement said. AFP
