A SHIPPING and logistics firm has secured a contract extension with a steel company, creating a handful of new jobs in the process.

AV Dawson, based in Middlesbrough, has secured a three year extension to support British Steel’s steel rolling operations at its special profiles facility in Skinningrove and at its Teesside Beam Mill in Lackenby.

The new deal secures the jobs of over 70 employees and creates a further 12 new roles at the firm, which has operated on-site logistics on the sites for over five years for British Steel.

AV Dawson carry out a variety of jobs including de-scaling machinery, on site logistics support, managing the recycling and waste solutions and carrying out the deep cleaning operations on-site during shut-downs.

Gary Dawson, AV Dawson managing director, said: “We are delighted to have secured a further three year contract with British Steel. Over the past five years we have built a strong partnership with British steel and we have become an integral part of their teams on both sites.

“We can provide a number of onsite logistics services on our customers’ own sites, enabling them to increase efficiency by bringing in a specialist with specific expertise and equipment.

“As a business, we continuously look at ways in which we can improve and expand our services for our customers by offering increased safety and productivity levels. Our recent investment illustrates our commitment to the long term partnership we have with British Steel.

“AV Dawson remains a professional, willing and engaged partner committed to the continued improvement and development of the safety culture, not only of its own employees but everyone working within the Skinningrove and Lackenby sites”

Matt Stockwell, British Steel’s Teesside manager, said: “We’re delighted to be continuing to work in partnership with AV Dawson.

“In the last five years AV Dawson has worked with us to provide a flexible solution in terms of resource to cover both our Teesside Service Centre and Teesside Beam Mill operations under one contract.

"This has been effective and worked well for the teams here serving our customers, it’s also brought efficiencies with it too. This is one of the reasons why we’ve renewed the contract with them."

AV Dawson has recently undergone a £12.5m master plan, which has included a £2.6m intermodal rail terminal, which provides freight firms with a direct link to the East Coast Mainline.

It has also developed a £3.4m deepwater quay which allows companies to kit out vessels and ship wind turbine components out to sea, as well as the opening of its £6.5m automotive steel distribution centre.