Spanish Celsa to buy Cardiff plant of ASW
It has been announced that Spanish Celsa Group is in firm negotiations to buy the Cardiff business of the UK based long product steel maker ASW. ASW went into receivership of KPMG on July 10, 2002. The deal includes Cardiff's majority property, some of its plant and machinery as well as some of Sheerness equipment aiming to conclude a contract by January, enabling the Cardiff plant to restart operations thereafter. The Sheerness site with a bar and light section rolling mill is not completely included in the deal. Originally, it was felt that Celsa was the only interested party in the Sheerness site but there are rumours of "soft-loans" from the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) to keep the Cardiff site open at the expense of Sheerness. Celsa are not interested in buying the Sheerness business and the Sheerness melt shop has stopped production today. Approximately 10'000mt stock billets will be rolled over the next week and then the bar mill will close. Production at other two plants Tremorfa and Castle Works stopped production on July 26, following the receivership.