Tata steelworks given £3mln makeover

Tata Steel's Shotton Works in North Wales will get a £3mln upgrade to its two paint lines.

The upgrade at the Colorcoat paintlines at the steelworks in Deeside is to improve quality and is estimated to reduce paint use by 650,000L a year.

Project Lead Engineer Dave Prytherch explains, 'Coater heads are fundamental to the Colorcoat production process, being used to apply paint to the steel strip substrate. Upgrading them will deliver greater control of the paint application process by improving how the paint is transferred onto the strip, and will give us infinite repeatability.

'The current coater heads rely on manual adjustments to set the paint thickness, whereas the new heads incorporate a servo motor control, which will provide much greater accuracy and safer hands-free operations.'

This follows Shotton Works' 2022 sustainability commitment to reduce the sites carbon footprint; produce products and services that support sustainable construction; protect and expand site bio-diversity, and maximise material effiiciency and achieve zero onsite waste.

Commissioning of the new finish coater heads on Colorcoat No.1 line has now been completed, with work on Colorcoat No.2 due to be finished in June 2023.