Tata Steel has opened its upgraded rail manufacturing plant located in Hayange in the Lorraine region of France.
The company has invested €35 million in the plant for the expansion and upgrading with the latest production equipment.
The facility, which manufactures rails with a length up to 80 m, can now manufacture 108-m rails for the super-speed railway lines in France and other European countries. The investment has augmented the facility’s annual manufacturing capacity from 300,000 to 340,000 t. It has also enhanced the quality and output of the plant in addition to securing more employment.
Henrik Adam, who serves as Chief Commercial Officer at Tata Steel, stated that the upgraded rail mill in Hayange shows the company’s commitment to maintain its dominance in the rail industry. The company’s two advanced rail manufacturing plants in France and the United Kingdom now feature state-of-the-art production capability and it will continue to offer advanced products and services to its customers in growth markets, he said.
According to Tata Steel’s Rail Sector Lead, Gérard Glas, by utilizing the company’s 108-m long rails, its customers can reduce their maintenance expenditures and offers a smoother ride to travelers.
On September 2011, Tata Steel proclaimed that it had received a key order from COSEA, a construction consortium, to deliver 84,000 t of superior quality rails for a new super-speed track for the South-Europe-Atlantique line extending 302 km between the cities Bordeaux and Tours. Earlier in December 2009, the company inked a €350 million deal with SNCF, a railway operator in France, to supply rails for a period of up to six years.