NO workers at a port will lose their jobs despite the facility losing a major customer with the imminent closure of the Corus steel plant.

PD Ports staff at Teesport have faced an uncertain future since last month’s announcement that Corus Teesside Cast Products (TCP), near Redcar, east Cleveland, would close later this month.

The potential demise of TCP was a major factor in PD Ports announcing 120 job losses in May last year, although that figure was later cut.

But the container-handling side of the business has expanded dramatically at Teesport, with Tesco opening an import centre, and a number of shipping lines setting up operations at the port, meaning staff being moved to that side of the business.

Other employees will take up roles deliberately left unfilled pending the Corus TCP outcome.

The past six months have seen a 51 per cent growth in container volumes at Teesport compared to the same period in 2008.

Last month, it was revealed that the port had handled more than 100,000 containers in a year for the first time.

David Robinson, PD Ports’ group chief executive, said: “Corus is a major customer of ours and it will reduce imports of ore and coal, as well as exports of steel.

“In May last year, we put out a statement saying there were 120 positions at risk and we started a restructuring programme.

“We have now completed that programme and some 60 employees have left the business voluntarily, most of those taking early retirement.

“Before Christmas, when Corus announced the closure of Redcar, we said there maybe upwards of 50 people still at risk.

“We have now done quite a bit of work on future planning and where we are going with the business.

“We now do not expect any further job losses as a result of the Corus closure.

“What we are going to do is redeploy people within the business, retrain them and move them into the unitised business.”

Mr Robinson said the container traffic side of the business was likely to grow significantly over the next 18 months.

Asda already operated a large import centre at Teesport, followed by Tesco’s new facility in August last year. Mr Robinson said: “The plan is to attract others. We are working on that and I am reasonably confident we should be able to attract another significant player in the course of the next 12 months.”

He added that the jobs created on the container side were “good long-term jobs”, and said: “You cannot move the port anywhere, they are going to be here, hopefully, for many years.”

The retraining of staff will begin later this month.

Although customers such as Asda and Tesco have been the driving force behind the growth in container traffic, it has also been helped by the Containerships group last year appointing Teesport as its base for Mediterranean and Baltic services.

BG Freight and global container shipping line Evergreen also established new services at the port last year.