India’s industrial outpost – Tata for now
The country’s biggest manufacturer is Indian. What does it seek from and give to Britain?
Sep 10th 2011 | STOCKSBRIDGE | The Economist
THE steelworks at Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire are strangely quiet. Its furnaces are not of the roaring blast variety; they are small, purring vacuum-arc furnaces that use electrical current to re-melt steel. Beer-barrel-sized ingots made from scrap at a sister steelworks in nearby Rotherham are cleaned, welded to a stub and lowered into the furnace. The drop-by-drop melting takes 12-14 hours, removes impurities and strengthens the steel. Once cooled and tested, the blocks of steel are ready for use in aerospace and oil-drilling, where high-strength steel is prized.
The steelworks were once part of Corus, an Anglo-Dutch firm, and before that of British Steel. They are now owned by Tata Steel, which belongs to an Indian conglomerate that also makes Continue reading
