AS the crisis engulfing the UK’s steel industry continues, one firm has bucked the trend by announcing plans for the country’s first renewable energy-powered ‘super plant’ in Newport.

The steel plant owned by Liberty House and the adjacent power station run SIMEC on the banks of the River Usk are to be merged into the UK’s first Greensteel facility capable of processing two million tonnes of the material a year.

The firms, which are both owned by the Indian Gupta family, will work together to increase the existing rolling capacity at the Liberty plant while the coal-fired SIMEC power station will be converted to eco-friendly biomass.

Newport’s two MPs Jessica Morden and Paul Flynn, along with the city’s AMs John Griffiths and Jayne Bryant, visited the site on Friday, May 27 to hear about the project.

Liberty’s executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta said he believed the plans would create new jobs and support the struggling steel industry.

"This was a very valuable opportunity to brief Newport’s elected representatives about our Greensteel vision, which we believe will generate many new skilled jobs in the city and ultimately make a major difference to the whole UK steel and wider manufacturing sectors," he added.

“Historically Newport has been one of the country’s most important steel-making locations so it’s very appropriate that this is the springboard for our Greensteel plans.

“If we can make steel competitively in the UK, we can generate potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector nationwide.”

Ms Morden, whose Newport East constituency encompasses the Liberty and SIMEC plans, as well as Tata Steel’s Llanwern steelworks, said the plans had “huge potential” for the city.

“This is very exciting for our area and for the steel industry,” she said.

Ms Bryant said she was particularly interested to hear about the impact the plans could have on the proposed Newport tidal lagoon.

“We had a discussion with Liberty on where they are and how important the steel industry is to Newport and Wales,” she said.

“It was fascinating and so exciting.”

Writing on Twitter after the visit Mr Flynn said: “Saw the miracle of Liberty Steel Newport where Sanjeev Gupta gave a dead steel plant the Lazarus treatment & restored it productive life.”

Liberty House is one of the firms which has submitted a bid for Tata Steel’s UK operations. Last week Tata created a shortlist of preferred bids, but it is not currently known if Liberty’s is among them.