Concerns increases that British steel could lack raw materials in a few days for its high stoves in Scanthorpe.
The government plans to nationalize the company, which said that its two main ovens are “no longer financially sustainable”, which has made it possible to lose fears that the 2,700 jobs could be lost.
Simon Boyd, director general of Reidsteel, a British steel client, said that the intervention of the BBC government was the “only solution if we want to keep steel in the United Kingdom”.
“We only have days to guarantee the order of materials to prevent the forced closure of the stoves in next month. We are talking about days,” he said.
British Steel, who mainly manufactures Steel for Construction, belongs to the Chinese company Jingye since 2020.
Jingye says he has invested more than 1.2 billion pounds sterling in British Steel to maintain operations, but claims to have undergone financial losses of around £ 700,000 per day.
The government has offered 500 million pounds in support to partially finance a passage from the high furnace to more energy -efficient electric arc ovens.
But this decision was rejected by the company.
Electric arc ovens do not burn hot enough to make virgin steel and are fed with scrap steel.
Mr. Boyd said that the current SCUTHORPE high stoves could produce “the highest quality of available steel”.
“If we lose this capacity, we will depend entirely on the (countries) like China producing steel from the high furnace and you know that the electric arc overalls that make steel from scrap metal are all good, but they are at least five years,” he told the Today program.
It is very difficult and very expensive to make the Hauts-Four work once again once they have been deactivated, which would make the existing vulnerability of the Scunthorpe site even more perilous.
Boyd added that he was “very encouraged” to hear that the government is “finally” envisaged nationalization.
Roy Rickhuss, secretary general of the largest community of the Syndicat des workers steel in the United Kingdom, told the BBC that he had agreed with the Prime Minister that “all options should be on the table and this includes nationalization”.
“Whatever you decide to do, will come with a cost and if the government owns the company, it will have to increase this cost,” he added.
