Tata Steel Ltd.

Tata Steel's efforts to build a business catering to the wind energy sector in Europe, got a boost, as it secured a multi-million pound contract from engineering giant, Siemens. The deal to supply 25,000 tonnes of high quality profiled steel plate for 150 wind turbine towers to Siemens Wind Power was worth an unspecified eight figure pound amount.

The Siemens deal comes at a time of growing pressure on Europe's steel industry, which has forced companies to scale back production. In the second half of 2011 production at Tata Steel's European operations fell to between 80 and 85 per cent of capacity, as the firm mothballed a blast furnace in Scunthrope and a hot strip mill in Llanwern in Wales.

The European Wind and Energy Association estimates that wind energy will triple its power output by 2020, from 5.5 per cent of total EU demand in 2010, to around 15.7 per cent of demand. Tata Steel has been making other moves into the renewable energy space, including creating a supply base for steel products used to make the casing structures for wind turbines.