The decisions made in the coming days will determine whether the British Steel’s Scathorpe factory remains open, the BBC includes.
The Chinese owner of the factory, Jingye, canceled two cargoes of coke coal for the two high stoves on the site and he has not yet paid for the iron pastilles which should arrive next week.
Without coal and iron ore, the high stoves will stop in a few weeks.
Last week, British Steel launched a consultation on the proposed fence of his two stoves in Scanthorpe, with up to 2,700 risky jobs.
He met the Union, GMB and Unite community.
GMB national officer Charlotte Brumpton-Childs said that a union meeting with workers on Wednesday had shown that `Jingye had no intention of managing the plant in a responsible manner. Nationalization is now the only option to save steel manufacturing in the United Kingdom. “”
Sources close to the consultation accuse Jingye of deliberately underlining the talks to save the factory by closing the supply of raw materials.
A spokesman for British Steel said: “We are unable to comment at the moment”.
British Steel has belonged to Jingye since 2020. The Chinese firm said it has invested more than 1.2 billion pounds Sterling in British Steel to maintain operations and claim that it has undergone financial losses of around £ 700,000 per day.
Zengwei and the director general of the company, said that the launch of the consultation process was “a necessary decision given the extremely difficult circumstances that the company is confronted”, including the imposition of American tariffs and higher environmental costs.
The BBC reported last week that the company had drawn up an investment plan of 2 billion pounds sterling and that it expected the government half.
The BBC understands that British Steel recently rejected a government offer of 500 million pounds Sterling.
There are growing calls to government to nationalize the business.
On Tuesday, the council of the North Lincolnshire voted unanimously in favor of the fact that the company was brought back to public property, while last week in Parliament, the conservative deputies and the deputy chief of Reform UK, Richard Tice, also called for nationalization.
Asked about the BBC Radio 4 Today program this morning, business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds MP, said that he was “ strongly attached to the United Kingdom with a steel industry ” and that he ensured that “ We are closely committed to this question ”.
However, refused to comment on the reports according to which public property was actively examined by the ministers, saying to BBC Radio 4: “We are talking to the company. This is in private property, this is the situation we have inherited, we are trying to find a means.”
“I know that for the workforce in particular, it is a really difficult period,” he added.
