Tata Steel to close Port Talbot blast furnaces and replace with electric-arc.

[Peter Eaton]

17 hours ago, APOLLO said:

I agree re recycling though I would not like to be on a HS2 train riding at 225mph on rails made by recycled Heinz bean tins though.

You say this but I have seen trains from Masbrough , South Yorkshire, to Cardiff Tidal from above on a  road bridge & the wagons loads where clearly full of crushed tin cans. which left a very unpleasant smell in the air on passing.

Edited January 20 by Peter Eaton
ref quote sender

[jjb1970]

What do people propose for British steel making? Serious question.

 

As long as I can remember steel works in the UK have lurched from closure threat to closure threat, with a lot of downsizing and job losses. We outsourced much of our heavy industry and we are neither a low labour cost, low energy cost nor especially productive economy meaning we're not especially well positioned to export steel.

 

Electric arc furnaces and a focus on recycled steel at least give a possibility of a viable long term future, trying to keep the existing model will just kick the can down the road for a year or two and probably end up in complete closure.

[woodenhead]

Given most building and infrastructure projects have some element of steel within them you'd think there would be a good home market for steel but that sadly seems to be not the case if the blast furnaces are not economically viable.  If they are viable and this is pure outsourcing of dirty industry then we are just shifting the problem to someone else but at the same time creating a massive risk for the UK if it finds itself on the wrong side of an argument with a virgin steel producer.

 

I recognise the need to reduce carbon and the UK is doing a lot, but tossing out the basic industries whilst at the same time expanding oil fields sounds to me a little conflicted.

 

[4630]

I don’t know enough about the economics of the global market for steel and the steel producers, but I’d suggest that the market is unduly distorted by the production in ‘low cost’ countries and the consequent ‘dumping’ of low cost (and possibly lower quality) steel onto the world market.

 

Abandoning the UK’s ability to produce virgin steel and relying solely on overseas production as a source in time of growing global conflict, longer supply chains and an uncertain financial climate, strikes me as unwise in the extreme.

 

is this just another example of ‘the race to the bottom’?

[APOLLO]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

What do people propose for British steel making? Serious question.

 

As long as I can remember steel works in the UK have lurched from closure threat to closure threat, with a lot of downsizing and job losses. We outsourced much of our heavy industry and we are neither a low labour cost, low energy cost nor especially productive economy meaning we're not especially well positioned to export steel.

 

Electric arc furnaces and a focus on recycled steel at least give a possibility of a viable long term future, trying to keep the existing model will just kick the can down the road for a year or two and probably end up in complete closure.

 

Good question.

 

I am not knowledgeable regarding Steel, but I doubt specialist steels can be made from recycled steel of many grades, contamination and former purpose. For instance new nuclear submarines are under construction at Barrow. No doubt special steel needed for the hulls which I doubt would be a recycled product.

 

And steel from China is very questionable regarding quality, especially construction steel.

 

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/yorkshire-industrialist-sir-andrew-cook-calls-for-wholesale-ban-on-unsafe-chinese-steel-imports-3250370

 

https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/steel-producers-warn-on-chinese-rebar

 

Recycle yes, but quality steel (which we currently manufacture) is THE problem when we soon cease production.

 

Brit15

 

Edited January 20 by APOLLO

[Bernard Lamb]

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the government has put a block on the Japanese getting their hands on a US steel company.

Bernard 

[APOLLO]

The merging of steel producers and resultant closures has been relentless over time.

 

Wigan once made its own iron & steel, local coal, ore from Cumberland. Local small firms merged to form The Wigan Coal & Iron Company, a huge concern at the turn of the last century.

 

 

Later WC&I merged with several other companies to form The Wigan Coal Corporation, and the Wigan works was closed in the 1920's with production moved to a vast new works at Irlam (Near Manchester) alongside the Manchester Ship Canal & CLC railway, and became the Lancashire Steel Corporation.

 

 

Later Nationalised, this large facility was closed in the early 70's.

 

I suppose Ravenscraig, Consett, Middlesborough, Workington, Scunthorpe, Corby, Ebbw Vale, Llanwern, Port Talbot etc have similar histories.

 

BUT the cessation of ALL blast furnaces / iron & steel production IN THE UK is a national folly of immense strategic and economic signigicance. Once gone it will never return.

 

Brit15

[C126]

Please may I thank you all for your contributions.  They provide much-needed context to the subject, and I am grateful for your time and efforts.  Again, if there is someone who can explain what specialist metals can not be produced from recycled steel and why, I would be very interested.  E.g., why are car-body panels so 'special'?  If anyone knows, please do share the information if you can.

 

Encyclopedia Britannica article on how a blast-furnace works (although I expect we all know this already!) 🙂  :

 

https://www.britannica.com/technology/blast-furnace

 

I hope the community affected can be cushioned from the effects of the replacement, but I fear for them, after previous experiences of industrial changes.

 

 

[4630]

21 minutes ago, C126 said:

Again, if there is someone who can explain what specialist metals can not be produced from recycled steel and why, I would be very interested.  E.g., why are car-body panels so 'special'?  If anyone knows, please do share the information if you can.

 

This might help a bit;
 

“For the body of a car, Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) is generally considered the best material. It is an alloy with additional metallic elements and solutions to increase strength. The key characteristic of AHSS is its tensile (i.e. a material that can be shaped and stretched) strength, which can be measured and graded in mega-pascal (MPa). AHSS and its different grades are categorised by vehicle producers and associations, showing that product differentiation plays an important role in automotive steel – something that can be potentially useful when considering steel differentiation according to carbon intensity.”

 

It’s taken from here https://www.pubaffairsbruxelles.eu/opinion-analysis/can-the-cars-we-buy-drive-green-steel-production/ which, to me, is an interesting read but I also acknowledge that this is a complex issue of which this is but one dimension.

 

If I’ve read the piece correctly, in summary an electric arc furnace can produce AHSS steel, but it’s difficult to do at scale because of the volume of specific scrap material required.
 

That brings in significant questions around economics and logistics.  I’ve not seen those answered yet. 
 

 

Edited January 21 by 4630
Missed a word out

[simon b]

21 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the government has put a block on the Japanese getting their hands on a US steel company.

Bernard 

 

There is alot wrong with the USA, but sadly it does seem that they care far more about this sort of thing than our lot do.

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, C126 said:

Please may I thank you all for your contributions.  They provide much-needed context to the subject, and I am grateful for your time and efforts.  Again, if there is someone who can explain what specialist metals can not be produced from recycled steel and why, I would be very interested.  E.g., why are car-body panels so 'special'?  If anyone knows, please do share the information if you can.

 

Encyclopedia Britannica article on how a blast-furnace works (although I expect we all know this already!) 🙂  :

 

https://www.britannica.com/technology/blast-furnace

 

I hope the community affected can be cushioned from the effects of the replacement, but I fear for them, after previous experiences of industrial changes.

 

 

Specialist steel can be produced from scrap; the steelworks in the Sheffield area do so, producing steels for the likes of the aerospace and power generation market. One source of their scrap is Network Rail's Whitemoor Yard, which supplies scrap rail and re-bar from concrete sleepers.

[Reorte]

Possibly a stupid question but why would producing decent steel from scrap be harder than producing it from iron ore, which is presumably full of all sorts of impurities? Years ago I heard the last iron mine in Cumbria grumbling that high quality ore wasn't worth that much more than low grade stuff, implying processing whatever wasn't much of a problem.

[Jeff Smith]

Putting aside the technicalities of steel production, this sort of industrial realigning is a continuous process that often displaces specialist workforces.  Economics often drives it - in our world we only have to look at model train manufacture.....

 

The oft cited need to keep a particular industry or skill set in country is patriotic but sometimes misplaced.  Privatisation puts the decisions into a purely economic field with decisions made regardless of 'national' interests.  The government theoretically has control over nationalized industries but government ideas change and again 'national' interests can be ignored.  I was an apprentice at Rolls-Royce when the RB211/Tristar situation almost led R-R into bankruptcy in 1971.  The Tory government which had a beef about nationalizing anything nevertheless stepped in for 'national necessity'.

 

 

 

[Mike_Walker]

In memory.

 

Brush-Bagnall rebuild 953 and Hunslet-Barclay 07 on front of one the now doomed Port Talbot blast furnaces.  5 August 1996.

 

Unrebuilt Brush-Bagnall 902 hauls a torpedo car to get another load of molten steel from the blast furnaces.

[Giannis Halkis]

7 hours ago, simon b said:

 

There is alot wrong with the USA, but sadly it does seem that they care far more about this sort of thing than our lot do.

Most countries seem to care about this type of thing - except your country (UK) and mine (Greece).

Back in the 1960s, Greece produced more or less anything any other “Western” industrialised country could do.

Then, our leaders decided that Greece could do better with tourism and deliberately ran most of our industry down.

Yes, having a military junta didn’t help but that was later.

Why does this matter?

Well, Greece has a good climate, UK doesn’t!

Be warned against politicos who only serve each other.

G.

[Bernard Lamb]

4 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

Putting aside the technicalities of steel production, this sort of industrial realigning is a continuous process that often displaces specialist workforces.  Economics often drives it - in our world we only have to look at model train manufacture.....

 

The oft cited need to keep a particular industry or skill set in country is patriotic but sometimes misplaced.  Privatisation puts the decisions into a purely economic field with decisions made regardless of 'national' interests.  The government theoretically has control over nationalized industries but government ideas change and again 'national' interests can be ignored.  I was an apprentice at Rolls-Royce when the RB211/Tristar situation almost led R-R into bankruptcy in 1971.  The Tory government which had a beef about nationalizing anything nevertheless stepped in for 'national necessity'.

 

 

 

Just how much of this thread have you read?

Model train manufacture might well have moved to other countries, but the material and methods are basically the same. What is proposed for the steel industry, is for  the UK to be the only country in the G20 to no longer hase a manufacturing capacity.  I put that on the same level as a threat to national security as giving up nuclear weapons. Do we seriously want to have less capabiity of making steel, and the products that are made from it, than Iran? That will be the situation in a few years time if this goes through.

Bernard

 

[LBRJ]

A couple of my long time acquaintances were formally  pretty high up the metallurgical ladder at Forgemasters.

I shall ask their opinion on this matter at the earliest convenience and report  back on any of their thoughts they wish to share - I imagine they are a fairly good source on the matter of electric arc melting of special steels.

[Jeff Smith]

On 20/01/2024 at 08:44, Bernard Lamb said:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the government has put a block on the Japanese getting their hands on a US steel company.

Bernard 

But seems to have trouble keeping the Chinese at bay on the cyber front.  This is more troubling than a friendly county owning an industry sector.

[Jeff Smith]

2 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Just how much of this thread have you read?

Model train manufacture might well have moved to other countries, but the material and methods are basically the same. What is proposed for the steel industry, is for  the UK to be the only country in the G20 to no longer hase a manufacturing capacity.  I put that on the same level as a threat to national security as giving up nuclear weapons. Do we seriously want to have less capabiity of making steel, and the products that are made from it, than Iran? That will be the situation in a few years time if this goes through.

Bernard

 

All of it, I do understand the situation from a layman's point of view.  Living in the US has taught me that there are always at least two sides to every story, especially so because the two parties in the government here are considerably further apart than those in the UK.  For every politician that wants to keep critical industries US owned there is one who wants to sell to the highest bidder wherever they come from.  It is weird to hear the retoric against China but much of the consumer merchandise is made in China.  Walmart could not survive selling only US made products as they are the most expensive.

 

Touching on model railway production, surely the point is that the UK cannot economically produce the finished product.  Lionel trains are I believe manufactured in the US but the average course-scale steam  loco costs $1000, many twice that.  However just like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, there is considerable brand loyalty.

 

In terms of retaining critical UK industrial capabilities, that largely went out of the window with large international corporations following the industrial consolidations and nationalization since WW2 - ship building, aircraft production, train production, domestic electronics, automobile production and of course steel, etc.

 

Nuclear weapons?  Does it make us a target?  Some people would think it a noble action to give them up!

 

Edited January 21 by Jeff Smith

[LBRJ]

My acquaintances, as mentioned in my previous post, were of the opinion that the only potential issue could be a short term short fall in overall production capacity.

The point that we currently export a lot of our scrap metals is relevant.

As I thought, but wanted to confirm, most of the steel produced here is made by using the electric arc process anyway; all special steels are also made that way.

Blast furnaces only make the most basic of steel iron.

apparently that typo really matters, edited now.

Edited January 22 by LBRJ

[Jeff Smith]

Electric-arc seems good environmentally assuming use of renewable electricity resources.

[Fat Controller]

40 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

My acquaintances, as mentioned in my previous post, were of the opinion that the only potential issue could be a short term short fall in overall production capacity.

The point that we currently export a lot of our scrap metals is relevant.

As I thought, but wanted to confirm, most of the steel produced here is made by using the electric arc process anyway; all special steels are also made that way. Blast furnaces only make the most basic of steel.

Blast furnaces do not make steel : they make liquid iron. This  passes through a 'Convertor' , where additions of various sorts are made, and where the carbon content is managed. These days, most steel manufacture is by the Basic Oxygen process, previously the Siemens Open-Hearth converter and the Bessemer converte were used. 

 

 

 

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

Once we loose the ability to smelt ore into iron to produce high grade steel we are stuffed,the next goverment car crash to our country. They stuffed up energy as we are not self sufficient with the wholesale destruction of coal plants before we have capable alternatives in place,it should have gone nuclear but Cameron stopped that,and hes back at Westminster,there has to be a bigger picture to all this madness.

[jjb1970]

We are not abandoning steel production, the idea that replacing blast furnaces with electric arc processes means we are is scare mongering. A far more flexible production process, which can be much cleaner and which has a lot more potential to keep British steelmaking viable. If it's about being reliant on imports (and those nasty Chinese,  never miss an opportunity to raise that dark spectre) then that train left the station years ago. Why so much concern about steel, advanced semi-conductors are a bigger vulnerability in the modern world if it's about national security.

[Jeff Smith]

As I said earlier there’s always at least two sides to situations!