Saved from extinction, British Steel at Scunthorpe is making the most of its new lease on life. In contrast to the muted communications of the previous managerial regime, the new UK government-installed team has been eager to celebrate every move from the site. To date, these have principally been raw materials movements from the nearby port of Immingham.
After a series of video releases, featuring bulk deliveries of ore feed stocks and coal fuel, British Steel has released images of finished products leaving the plant at Scunthorpe. They’re good news for the rail industry. The “long products” in question are fresh supplies of rails for the tracks of Britain’s network, with some export orders in the pipeline.
Clear signals, mixed metaphors
“More deliveries of raw materials are being made to our iron and steel making operations in Scunthorpe,” said a statement from British Steel. The UK Government took the company back into public ownership earlier in April, after the Chinese owners (Jingye Corporation) threatened to close the blast furnaces. The furnaces are the last two left in the UK, and the only means of making virgin steel.
“Hot on the heels of a shipment of coke into Immingham Bulk Terminal, we’ve taken a delivery of injection coal,” said an unintentionally mixed metaphor, as British Steel took a further bulk load late last week. “Injection coals are used to reduce the purchased coke proportion in the blast furnace burden for efficiencies and cost reduction,” they explained. “These are a different type of coal to that our former coke oven plant processed (known as carbonising coal). The aged coke ovens, which were no longer financially viable, would turn millions of tonnes of carbonising coal into coke to help fuel our blast furnaces. Now, we buy coke – and much smaller volumes of coal.”
Coils and rails produced
The management says they now have secured enough raw materials to keep both blast furnaces running at Scunthorpe. They have also ended a redundancy consultation initiated by the previous management. “The work done to secure the raw materials we need for both our Queen Anne and Queen Bess blast furnaces means we are able to run both continuously,” they said. “This means the previously planned ‘Salamander Tap’ [a hot draining of residual metal] of Queen Bess will no longer go ahead and all operations at British Steel are being maintained, including Scunthorpe Rod Mill.
As well as coiled products for the automotive industry, Scunthorpe has also been rolling out a product that has made UK industry nervous. The first run of steel rails left the plant since the nationalisation (that the UK Government claims is not a nationalisation). The flat-bottom rails will be stored at Scunthorpe until needed, or transported to a facility at Eastleigh near Southampton, managed by the infrastructure agency Network Rail. The wider logistics and port sectors will also be relieved that they don’t have to look abroad for replacement crane rail either.