British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces could close earlier than expected after the company’s owner reportedly halted the supply of resources required to keep them running.
Sky’s Ed Conway wrote: “Inside British Steel, the UK’s last remaining primary steelmaker. First footage of the blast furnaces in half a decade. With the plant’s Chinese owners preparing for its closure, this might be the last glimpse of virgin steelmaking in the country that invented it.”
He added: “We came here to document this place in what may be its final days. Once upon a time there were four blast furnaces working simultaneously. Queen Anne, Queen Bess, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary (they’re the only plant to give them names, not numbers). Now only two running…’
Then he wrote: “Inside the headquarters here (again, the first time cameras have been in here since the Chinese takeover). It felt somewhat empty. And not entirely in keeping with typical Scunthorpe decor.”
He then wrote: “The govt have been pushing Jingye, the Chinese owners, to decarbonise. Up until recently they’d been talking about replacing the furnaces with electric arc furnaces. But those talks have broken down. Now there’s only a few weeks worth of fuel to keep the blast furnaces going.”
He ended with: “Once you switch blast furnaces off you can’t easily switch them back on. So something’s gotta give in the next few days. Either a deal is done, or govt nationalises BS or the furnaces are gone. Even as @jreynoldsMP confronts Trump tariffs, he must face this domestic crisis.”
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In response, David Osland wrote: “Thatcher privatised British Steel. Now Britain doesn’t have a steel industry left to renationalise.”
