Bridgnorth Aluminium's production on hold after molten metal leak

Full production at a Shropshire factory could be on hold for a "long period" after 50 tonnes of molten metal leaked from a furnace and set fire to the building, company bosses said today.

Bridgnorth Aluminium had to be evacuated after the liquid leaked from a container and into a basement before setting fire to some cabling.

More than 30 firefighters tackled the blaze for more than seven hours after it started at about 11pm on Sunday.

No one was hurt, but Simon MacVicker, managing director, today said the clean-up operation and damage to the business had meant orders were on hold.

"It is clearly a big problem," he said. "We are doing our engineering work at the moment to find out what we can get up and running as soon as possible.

"We could get some production through relatively soon but that depends on things we are working on now and they are not all assured of success.

"Clearly there could be a long period before we are in full production."

He said: "We are all committed to turning the place around and getting back again."

He added: "Customers have been very supportive and wished us luck but it is clearly a problem because they want the production.

"Staff have done a massive amount of cleaning up and we are trying to reconnect the processes that were damaged in the fire.

"We have some important meetings in the next few days with expert engineers to see what the damage is to the building and once we know that then we can begin to work out how long it will be until we are back in full production."

Mr MacVicker added the total cost of the damage was not yet clear.