Tata Steel sells UK pipe mills to Liberty House

Tata Steel said on Tuesday that it has agreed to sell its pipe mills in the north of England to the British industrial group Liberty House for an undisclosed amount. The Hartlepool plant has a production capacity of over 250,000 tonnes of pipes per year.

Tata Steel has been selling part of its UK business since last year and has also announced the start of negotiations to merge its UK and European steel assets with Germany's Thyssenkrupp.

“With this sale, Tata Steel UK will complete the restructuring of its portfolio to focus on the Talbot port-related product supply chain,” said Bimlendra Jha, CEO of Tata Steel UK.

"The sale is also an important step towards a more sustainable future for the rest of our UK business."

In February, Tata signed a £ 100 million contract to sell its steel business at Liberty House, saving 1,700 jobs, mostly in South Yorkshire, in the north of England.

Tata retained ownership of the Hartlepool pipe plant, which is supplied with steel coils from European assets that it wishes to retain and merge with Thyssenkrupp.

Tata, whose UK business is centered on a smelter in Port Talbot, Wales, said it will invest £ 1 million (US $ 1.29 million) in the Hartlepool Pipe Plant, which employs 270 people.

Privately held Liberty plans to acquire distressed steel assets in the UK and around the world, including the United States and Australia.

“This move will spur investment not only in Hartlepool, but also in our Dalzell (Scotland) plant and potentially ... Whyalla in Australia to provide us with a fully integrated world-class manufacturing facility for supplying pipeline projects,” Liberty Executive Chairman Sanjeev Gupta.

The steel sector in the UK is emerging from a crisis that put about 5,000 jobs, one fifth of the workforce, at risk in 2015/16.

Gupta made headlines for the first time last year when he offered to bail out all of Tata's “faulty” UK steel mills, but the Indian group ultimately decided not to sell all of its UK business and opted for a merger with Thyssenkrupp.