British Steel on verge

[Perazzishot]

As I posted elsewhere we are the size of a match head in terms of our global presence, yet we are punished and taxed in an attempt to cut our carbon footprint thus in turn pushes up the costs passed to clients. We then in turn go to cheaper manufacturers in huge industrial countries who make no effort!!

 

How can our own country knacker its own manufacturing industry while the world laughs as we bankrupt our own country?

[henry d]

2 hours ago, old'un said:

You are more than likely correct in saying things will eventually move on, but more to the point, do you think the loss of steel production in the UK will have any effect on manufacturing when our future reliance will be solely on imported steel?

Not really, our days of dominating the world in things like shipbuilding etc are long gone, let someone do it better and cheaper elsewhere and we can buy from them. I think we need to look towards other industries or production that we do well now, such as Dundee`s tech/gaming, now theres money for old rope!

[Scully]

3 hours ago, Vince Green said:

People will die, there will be suicides, depression, family breakups, repossessions, falling house prices, bankruptcy, increased alcohol and drug problems if South Wales is anything to go by. What's more it carries on for decades and gets passed on to future generations

People try to maintain appearances but behind the scenes it tears the heart out of a community. Not everybody copes; not everybody has the ability to find a way out

Well if that's the choices people want to take then so be it, but there are alternative choices. 

[old'un]

9 minutes ago, Scully said:

Well if that's the choices people want to take then so be it, but there are alternative choices. 

I don’t think some of the things mentioned by Vince Green would be by choice.

[Scully]

3 hours ago, old'un said:

I don’t think some of the things mentioned by Vince Green would be by choice.

Fair enough, but my experiences are different. When the major employer in my home town closed, making hundreds of families jobless and leading some reliant small businesses to close down, there was much doom and gloom forecast, but none of what Vince mentioned happened as far as I’m aware. Politicians made all the right noises as they do, but did nothing else; I’m not even sure they could have done anything. 

Some were offered the chance to retrain, some took their redundancy packages and retired, others took theirs and paid off mortgages, others used theirs to start their own small business or go self employed. Some even moved away to find work. 

I went self employed and built up a small business from nothing. It was literally hand to mouth for quite a few years, and even more so when the recession hit! I had many a sleepless night, but we managed to rear two wonderful children ( now in uni’ ) and paid off the mortgage. 

 

It happened again ( to a lesser extent and didn’t really effect me personally ) when WA Developments started up in town some years later, but then moved away when short sighted councillors refused to allow the company to expand. 

There are choices. 

 

[oowee]

7 hours ago, Vince Green said:

People will die, there will be suicides, depression, family breakups, repossessions, falling house prices, bankruptcy, increased alcohol and drug problems if South Wales is anything to go by. What's more it carries on for decades and gets passed on to future generations

People try to maintain appearances but behind the scenes it tears the heart out of a community. Not everybody copes; not everybody has the ability to find a way out

Your sadly right. I worked on the rescue package for LDV and Rover cars in Birmingham. It was heart breaking especially for those that had given their life to the company. 

Despite the growth in knowledge based industries, there are some industries and skills that as a nation we must retain as part of the fundamentals of being able to stand alone. Food, energy and steel are key components of that, but difficult to maintain on a small UK scale. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by oowee

[old'un]

26 minutes ago, Scully said:

Fair enough, but my experiences are different. When the major employer in my home town closed, making hundreds of families jobless and leading some reliant small businesses to close down, there was much doom and gloom forecast, but none of what Vince mentioned happened as far as I’m aware. Politicians made all the right noises as they do, but did nothing else; I’m not even sure they could have done anything. 

Some were offered the chance to retrain, some took their redundancy packages and retired, others took theirs and paid off mortgages, others used theirs to start their own small business or go self employed. Some even moved away to find work. 

I went self employed and built up a small business from nothing. It was literally hand to mouth for quite a few years, and even more so when the recession hit! I had many a sleepless night, but we managed to rear two wonderful children ( now in uni’ ) and paid off the mortgage. 

 

It happened again ( to a lesser extent and didn’t really effect me personally ) when WA Developments started up in town some years later, but then moved away when short sighted councillors refused to allow the company to expand. 

There are choices. 

 

Not everyone is perhaps as strong and determined as you, and good on you for doing what you have done, there are a possible 25,000 jobs at risk, I would imagine there will be lots of people who are not as strong minded as you, they are perhaps the people that are likely to fall into the things mentioned by Vince Green.

You may well be correct in what you say and everything will be just fine for the people concerned, lets hope so.

[grrclark]

5 hours ago, Perazzishot said:

As I posted elsewhere we are the size of a match head in terms of our global presence, yet we are punished and taxed in an attempt to cut our carbon footprint thus in turn pushes up the costs passed to clients. We then in turn go to cheaper manufacturers in huge industrial countries who make no effort!!

 

How can our own country knacker its own manufacturing industry while the world laughs as we bankrupt our own country?

Very true Andy.  I can’t share the presentation on here sadly, government restricted, but if the UK achieves the target of being carbon neutral by 2050, as is the current goal, on it’s own that would mean a 0.02% reduction in global carbon emissions.

The political consensus is that because we can we should and there is actually some good economic sense and science in that, but we ought not to pretend that it’s transformative at anything beyond a local level.

Also makes me laugh that Extinction Rebellion chose to try and paralyse the UK for a bit, for the sake if our 0.02% global contribution.

[old'un]

26 minutes ago, oowee said:

Your sadly right. I worked on the rescue package for LDV and Rover cars in Birmingham. It was heart breaking especially for those that had given their life to the company. 

Despite the growth in knowledge based industries, there are some industries and skills that as a nation we must retain as part of the fundamentals of being able to stand alone. Food, energy and steel are key components of that, but difficult to maintain on a small UK scale. 

That’s about how I see it.

plus who will get the British Rail contract for £200m? will we be a “super power” that possibly rely on china for our steel?

Edited May 22, 2019 by old'un

[grrclark]

7 hours ago, sam triple said:

just heard the government wouldn't bail them out ,so that's the end of another UK company among the reasons stated was brexit ,amazing how they can blame something that hasn't happened or wont happen yet

Not very UK really, once upon a time maybe.

This is the savage world of private equity and the PE backers behind British Steel are predominantly Scandinavian.

So much for the esteemed social values of the Scandi’s eh? 

Edited May 22, 2019 by grrclark

[Scully]

18 minutes ago, old'un said:

Not everyone is perhaps as strong and determined as you, and good on you for doing what you have done, there are a possible 25,000 jobs at risk, I would imagine there will be lots of people who are not as strong minded as you, they are perhaps the people that are likely to fall into the things mentioned by Vince Green.

You may well be correct in what you say and everything will be just fine for the people concerned, lets hope so.

But it wasn’t just me; there were hundreds of families effected; literally entire families in some cases. 

I appreciate the sentiment but it isn’t a case of being strong, but more a case of what else can you do but go on? Despite me saying ‘ there are choices ‘, giving up isn’t one of them. 

[KB1]

On 21/05/2019 at 12:28, old'un said:

One of British steels customers is British Rail, it supplies around 200,000 tonnes of Steel to British Rail, the contract is worth around £200m, this steel must be hard wearing and resistant to cracking, can you imagine the **** from china, as you say once we loose the ability to produce our own steel where does that leave us.  

You'd be surprised at how many structures in the UK have been built using Chinese, Korean and Polish steel for umpteen years now.......

[amateur]

My uncle was a big strong bloke who worked all his life in a Sheffield steel rolling mill (except for a period in the Parachute regiment in WWII).

When the mill closed, he didn't complain ( well not too much). He found himself a job controlling the linen supplies in one of the city's big hotels, and woe betide anyone who didn't follow his system.

[KB1]

On 21/05/2019 at 17:12, Jega said:

Living in S****horpe as i do is no bed of roses at the moment,although i don't work on the steel works many many of  my friends do and as you can well imagine they are very worried.

They should be worried......

There's a new Power Station being built on your doorstep (Keadby2).  The Spanish owned 'Scottish & Southern Electricity' has commisioned a German company 'Siemens' to build the project using steel (And workers) from Poland!

We gave it all away many years ago when we stopped apprenticeships and shipped the kids onto XBox etc......

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, did i see that the company who now own bought for £1

25 minutes ago, KB1 said:

They should be worried......

There's a new Power Station being built on your doorstep (Keadby2).  The Spanish owned 'Scottish & Southern Electricity' has commisioned a German company 'Siemens' to build the project using steel (And workers) from Poland!

We gave it all away many years ago when we stopped apprenticeships and shipped the kids onto XBox etc......

hello, if this is how our country works now ????? 

[Stonepark]

 

Older graph but the problem isn't Chinese steel who only account for about 8 to 10% of steel imports or any other low cost country on the far side of the world but EU imports with Germany as the main individual culprit, but also from the combination of the european nations as a whole which amount to roughly 68% of imports. Energy costs are particulalry significant  (Germany and others such as Bulgaria, etc subsidises through cheap energy) but carbon credits, vat on fuel etc all add to the price and makeUk steel unable to compete on a European basis never mind the world scene (and this is the fault of politicians and stupid policies such as taxing inputs such as energy to the manufacturing processes).

 

Same years for exports

 

We have a annual demand of approximately 11millions tonnes at best and did produce 7.8milllion tonnes in 2016 and prior to 2008 generally self sufficent..

So if my calculations are right in 2016 we were 72% self sufficent, part of the issue is over time our demand for steel has fallen after we rebuilt after the war and the nationalisation efforts previously resulted in a massive over production through the 60's and 70's as we exported to all corners of the earth (exactly as the Chinese are doing now) which was not sustainable and has left major headaches with pensions and (now) out dated mills and equipment.

 

 

 

 

[Pistol p]

British Steel is in the wrong country to be saved by our Government. It’s needs to be in or near somewhere that Trump called a “**** hole”, that way they’ll be given everything they want and even some guff they don’t need. 

 And you’ll pay for it.

[Rewulf]

11 hours ago, Pistol p said:

British Steel is in the wrong country to be saved by our Government. It’s needs to be in or near somewhere that Trump called a “**** hole”, that way they’ll be given everything they want and even some guff they don’t need. 

 And you’ll pay for it.

The government couldnt save BS if it wanted to.
EU rules forbid it, you cant subsidise these industries (unless youre Germany of course, who just ignore the rule)
The bill for carbon credits that BS cant pay is a major contributory factor too, the bill was generated from the EU.

As much as our government is useless at most things, like protecting our industries and jobs, and getting us out of trade agreements we voted to get out of 3 years ago (those same trade agreements that have killed our heavy industry) the blame for the demise of BS lies mostly at the EU s door.

[bostonmick]

22 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

hello, did i see that the company who now own bought for £1

 

The company paid one pound for what is now British steel however part of the deal would be they take on the responsilities of the company. So not only buying a business but also a debt. I think it is wrong that EU rules bar us from subsidising our industry. Although this rule might not apply to all members. I also find it strange that if I buy something from a country that is not in the EU say for £100 I am liable for customs duty of just over £22. Yet Chinese steel comes in millions of pounds at a load but after customs still cheaper than home made. I suppose somewhere in the EU this craziness made sense to someone. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, it will not be long before we have no big industry, how many car plants left, coal mines, when we built my sons workshop and wanted slates for roof chinese were half the price than those sourced in UK

[Vince Green]

German steel illegally subsidised has killed off the British Steel Industry, Polish coal, illegally subsidised, killed off the British coal industry.

Tell me again how this EU is worth remaining in???? I keep forgetting

[Bazooka Joe]

Quote

Saw similar things in the late 70`s/early 80`s when Consett Iron Company went bust. My uncle emigrated, grandad took early retirement, others moved to Newcastle etc or retrained, the local area suffered but it didn`t become a ghost town. Good investments in other areas, Phileas Fogg crisps being one such success story, brought jobs and money into the area, hopefully it will be the same for Scun thorpe etc

Was British Steel Malc, changed over late 60's.

Phileas Fogg crisps ceases to exist, filled a hole at the time. Consett was a bit of a boom town with all the redundancy money but that soon died off. Factory estates were the answer according to Thatcher, No-1, Hownsgill etc, some still have the same sign on that they had when the were opened (To let).

S****horpe will suffer badly, + the surrounding areas/busnesses, Vinces previous post sums it up well.

[henry d]

Yeah but nobody I knew called it British steel, "the Iron company" was the usual term. My dad trained there and left for a job at IRD in Newcastle so most of my family were the lucky ones that got a better deal than a lot of others.

The guys who started PF did very well iirc as they had it for a couple of years and sold it to one of the bigger firms, hopefully they retired to somewhere with warm breezes and dusky maidens.