Owner PD Ports says it set a record for steel exports in the second quarter of this year and the figure for 2007 as a whole should hit 2.4 million tonnes.

In 2004 Corus switched its Redcar plant from producing finished steel products to making unfinished slab steel, which is rolled into a useable form elsewhere.

The slab steel tends to be exported rather than used in the UK, so PD has benefited from increased trade.  Steel exports are likely to break through the running rate of 2.4 million tonnes-per-year barrier during 2007. The port's owner says that coping with this high level of work was "unthinkable "only two or three years ago.