STEELMAKER Corus yesterday secured its immediate financial future after agreeing an £837m three-year credit facility with lenders.

The long awaited deal will replace a £964m facility, which runs out in January, and will come as a huge relief to Corus and its 3,500 workers on Teesside .

Analysts had warned that the survival of the debt-ridden company depended on the extent and terms of support that banks were willing to offer.

Corus said the deal gave it committed financing for working capital requirements and considerable flexibility to raise additional funding to implement a restructuring programme in the UK.

The company said in April that 1,150 jobs across the country would be cut, and that the Redcar plant would no longer supply steel slabs to internal Corus markets.

In a trading update ahead of interim results on September 24, Corus said that it expected its operating result before one-off items in the first half of this year to be about £100m better than in the second half of last year, when it incurred losses of £141m.

Earlier this year, the group announced that chief executive Tony Pedder was stepping down after annual losses reached £458m.

The company has been trying to secure financing from equity and debt providers to pay for recovery measures for the UK operation ever since the planned sale of one of its aluminium subsidiaries fell through.

Corus has also secured improvements in average selling prices in European Union markets, despite subdued levels of demand for steel.

The group's net borrowings at the end of the half year increased to about £1.5bn, which was largely due to higher working capital requirements.

Corus said it had progressively achieved a more consistent manufacturing performance across its operations during the first half of this year, particularly in the UK, and it expected to benefit from this during the second half of the year

But it sounded a cautionary note, saying: "Conditions in EU markets remain both challenging and uncertain."