SENIOR executives from the company that owns a Teesside chemical complex visited the region to view progress on a £60m renewable energy development.

Tang Kin Fei, president and chief executive of SembCorp Industries, the Singapore parent company of Teesside-based Sembcorp Utilities UK, joined other executives for the tour of the company's Wilton 10 power station site.

Services business SembCorp Utilities UK owns and operates the Wilton International site, near Redcar, and employs 600 people in the Teesside area.

The group was on Teesside for a regular board meeting and visited the company's new wood-burning power station - the UK's first large-scale biomass power station to use wood as its renewable fuel source.

When operational, the power station will create about 15 permanent jobs at Sembcorp.

The plant will generate 30MW of 'green' electricity - enough to power about 30,000 homes.

On course for completion next summer, Wilton 10 is now approaching the halfway mark, with about 150 construction workers currently on site.

Mr Tang said: "It is an impressive development and one in which everyone in SembCorp is very proud."

About 20 per cent of the wood needed to fuel the power station will come from specially-grown energy crops.

In the case of Wilton 10, this means short rotation coppice - a type of willow.

About 7,500 acres needs to be grown by farmers and other large landowners within a 50-mile radius of the site.

Similar amounts of wood will also come from forests in the region from the tops of trees and forestry thinning operations, and also offcuts from sawmills.

The remaining 40 per cent will come from recycled wood supplied by UK Wood Recycling.

The company has recently applied for planning permission to allow the construction of a separate recycling facility at Wilton.