British Steel prone to working out of supplies | EUROtoday

British Steel is prone to working out of uncooked supplies inside weeks, elevating fears over the corporate’s future.

The authorities is contemplating nationalising the metal firm which has mentioned its two predominant furnaces are “no longer financially sustainable”, prompting fears the some 2,700 jobs could possibly be misplaced.

Simon Boyd, managing director of REIDsteel, a British Steel buyer, advised the BBC that authorities intervention was the “only solution if we want to keep steel making in the UK”.

He mentioned the agency’s Chinese-owner Jingye solely has “days left to secure the order of materials to prevent the forced closure of the blast furnaces over the next month”.

We’re speaking days,” he warned.

British Steel, which predominately makes steel for construction, has been owned by Jingye since 2020.

The Chinese company said it has invested more than £1.2bn into British Steel to maintain operations, but claims it has suffered financial losses of about £700,000 a day.

The government has offered £500m of support to partly fund a switch from blast furnaces to more energy efficient electric arc furnaces.

But the move has been rejected by the company.

Electric arc furnaces also do not burn hot enough to make virgin steel, and are fed with scrap steel.

Mr Boyd said Scunthorpe’s current blast furnaces could produce “the best grade of metal obtainable”.

“If we lose that functionality we’ll be wholly reliant on [countries] like China producing the blast furnace metal and you recognize electrical arc furnaces which make metal out of scrap are all properly and good however they’re no less than 5 years away,” he told the Today programme.

It is very difficult and very expensive to get blast furnaces running again once they have been turned off, which would make the Scunthorpe site’s existing vulnerability even more perilous.

Mr Boyd added that he was “very inspired” to hear the government is “lastly” considering nationalisation.

Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the UK’s largest steel workers union Community, told the BBC he agreed with the prime minister that “all choices needs to be on the desk and that features nationalisation”.

“Whatever you determine to do, will include a value and if the federal government personal the enterprise then they’re going to have to choose up that price,” he added.