British steel vs oil industry

some fair points, but....

Oil and gas is sold on the open market so even if 'we' produce it , it doesn't necessarily stay here.

The plan is to convert S****horpe to electric arc furnaces that dont require coal

North sea oil is increasingly played out, what little oil there is left is harder and more expensive to extract 

I thought the electric arc furnaces were going in at Port Talbot? AIUI these are good for recycling steel but not making high quality primary steel, which currently need blast furnaces. The issue there is that if these are switched off they can’t be restarted.

AIUI these are good for recycling steel but not making high quality primary steel, which currently need blast furnaces

i thought that too but after some digging it seems you can make high quality steel from EAF, if you tightly control what goes in

but you're right when the blast furnace goes out it's very hard to restart

https://edconway.substack.com/p/does-it-really-matter-if-we-cant

Imo its all about machismo and the notion we are a superpower and need steel to build battleships. Its one of those shibeoleths 

North sea oil is increasingly played out, what little oil there is left is harder and more expensive to extract

Your right it's more challenging. It's more challenging globally not just the north sea. But I guess it's better we import the oil and clap hands that we are holyier than thou for the energy the country and it's people requires to operate until viable alternatives are found. 

If we want high quality rail and other steels we need to start with the iron produced by the blast furnaces, producing this via EA will be expensive and requires a lot of additives. Most steel feedstock for EA is already imported and the electricity for them is already so expensive that the EAs at Rotherham are not working 24/7. 

Jingye were at Scunny to learn processes especially rail production and had run both raw material and engineering stocks down below safe minimum levels. If a blast furnace is just turned off it's game over, they have to be tapped and the molten iron and slag taken off in a controlled way as RatherbeinTobago says. In addition the steel making processes that are fed from the ironworks are also continuous hot processes that would need to be shut down properly. 

If the ironworks are closed, the UK would be the only G7 country without the ability to make it's own virgin steel .

Your right it's more challenging. It's more challenging globally not just the north sea. But I guess it's better we import the oil and clap hands that we are holyier than thou

unless you're talking about nationalised oil extraction, processing, distribution companies, 'we' wouldn't be importing anything 

The cost (money and social) of closing a steelworks in an uncontrolled manner, as happened in Redcar, was far greater than the previous government banked on. The effect of closing S****horpe in such a manner would be even greater.

British Steel, in more or less it's current form, was previously nationalised  about 7 years ago when it went bust and was then sold to the Jingye who promised investment. Nationalising again would be more or less a repeat.

Jingye and the government haven't been able to agree terms on modernisation and decarbonisation investment leading to the current crisis.

Rail and specialist construction steels (think grey ships which often don't float) make it fairly strategically important and difficult to replace. Also political and social reasons. N. Lincolnshire is not mega prosperous.

Who finally invests and takes it on is harder to answer.

Playing one set of jobs against another is a fools argument and will lose both sets.

PS that swear filter really does need some work. S****horpe may not be heaven but at least let us see its name without stars!

Making steel is not economically viable in the uk

If you believe its strategically important it has to be nationalised.

N.B. Sheffield Forgemasters is already owned by the MOD as they make important parts for non-floating boats, power stations and other things the government likes to keep control of.

The closing of Sunny is an inevitable consequence of energy policies which have left us with industrial power prices 4 times higher than the USA and the highest in Europe. Similarly the closure of Grangemouth refinery is a consequence of deliberate UK and SNP policies. No point crying when net zero policies result in obvious job losses.

Discouraging North Sea production when we will need oil and gas for decades is bordering on lunacy

As for steel. Scunny closing would make us the only G7 economy unable to produce virgin steel. Are we right and them all wrong?

I can accept that we need to have the ability to produce our own steel. I find it hard to believe that S****horpe and the area around it will be facing more hardship than Grangemouth and the surrounding area nor do I accept that it is a wise decision to close the only oil refinery in Scotland yet the Labour government are allowing that to happen soon. 

Swear filter is a tad over sensitive

The closing of Sunny is an inevitable consequence of energy policies which have left us with industrial power prices 4 times higher than the USA and the highest in Europe.

Someone in government will eventually join the dots and sort out power generation and distribution in the country (another nationalisation project) as shareholder returns for renewable energy appear to be around 368% or so I read earlier this month (where is another matter as I have CRS syndrome, Can't Remember Shit).

Posted by: irc

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No point crying when net zero policies result in obvious job losses.

I wouldn’t be so sure this is a Net Zero issue, more that energy is expensive (and it’s not electricity that’s necessarily the issue here) and the price cap only applies to residential customers. Elsewhere in Europe e.g. steelworks get discounted energy from the state provider… which we haven’t got.

The cost of the status quo on the environment is never factored in by those such as Farage arguing against Net Zero.

There isn't much left that's remotely economic, and a lot of the stuff that's supposed to be isn't in reality, and that's ignoring any major price dips. Do you want to put a heap of money into a receding , shrinking past , or move forward to a different future which will provide long term and genuinely high value jobs?

In any practical world power prices are a function of government policy.

For ref. I look at the economics of various HC projects probably 3 times a week on average (job)

unless you're talking about nationalised oil extraction, processing, distribution companies, 'we' wouldn't be importing anything 

Ok "putting it on a boat and moving it away from places where life is cheaper -and I don't mean the cost of living. 

Your choice of semantics to get hung up over don't change the fact that you still need the output. 

We had the ability to lifecycle the production here and it's been eroded by policy & taxation.- and further still policy and taxation instability  It's now cheaper and less hassle to extract and process abroad and put it on a boat. Keeps the greens happy without it being any greener.....

Specialist steel is needed for any country that wants to retain military power. Bulk steel, not so much. Universities and institutes that can provide expert knowledge and improvement of steel are definitely needed.

The off-shoring of production seems to be what Trump is ineffectually railing against in the USA. There are better ways to encourage innovation than tariffs for sure.

edit. Oil, not so sure. The more the UK strives for low carbon energy the better. Both imo and for the climate crisis. The current government's approach to oil and fossil fuel use are a continuation of the last government's approach: status quo - continued subsidy for fossil fuels and avoidance of change. 

and it’s not electricity that’s necessarily the issue here

Tying the price of all electricity to the cost of natural gas is most of the problem as it makes renewable energy too expensive to the economy. There's a lot of corporate welfare tied into renewables generation that we need to discourage as it is bad for the wider economy.

@sandwich Yes. I really don’t understand the rationale for this as it’s inflating the cost of decarbonisation.

Having steels ships is no good if you can't fuel them.

Bloke on radio lat weekend saying that there is a salamander (?) shut down that would make the furnaces able to be started.up again.

Isn't there a bigger issue around companies buying loss making infrastructure then taking huge gov payouts to "keep it going" afaik the S****horpe works were due a £500million injection of gov money.

Perhaps my title for this thread wasn't written properly.

I didn't mean to pit one set of workers against another, or even one industry against another.

I just don't understand why our government (all parties) seem to want to kill off our oil & gas industry because of environmental reasons, despite the fact that with the best will in the world, we will still need oil based products for the foreseeable future. They seem happy that we will buy oil/gas from overseas, this reducing our 'national security ', yet if S****horpe closes and we need to buy steel from other countries it becomes an issue of 'national security '.

By all means, save S****horpe, but don't kill off the cash cow that is oil and gas!

@guest11 as a 'free member' and with your weird understanding of the UK economy perhaps you are are an agent provocateur in this discussion? Gas and oil are part of the history of the UK economy. Not its future.

Gas and oil are part of the history of the UK economy. Not its future.

Not in you or i's lifetime. 

Perhaps in my children's children's life's we might be free of our dependency on oil. 

And I'm not just blinkered to its requirements for energy creation

Net zero won't happen, that said:

A thought through net zero policy would require a housing stock that doesn't require fossil fuels, a transport system that doesn't require fossil fuels, industry that doesn't require fossil fuels and a surplus of renewable energy. That's going to require a hell of a lot of steel being produced and if you want steel without fossil fuels the first thing to do is invest in electric furnaces in the UK. The transition will also require a lot of fossil fuels.

All of the above will create more jobs than there are currently people of working age in the UK.

Take net zero as a serious objective rather than a political slogan and investments would be made in the steel industry, and the oil and gas because stop oil and gas overnight and we'll never get to net zero.

Posted by: prettygreenparrot

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@guest11 as a 'free member' and with your weird understanding of the UK economy perhaps you are are an agent provocateur in this discussion? Gas and oil are part of the history of the UK economy. Not its future.

Eh?

I'm not saying that S****horpe shouldn't be saved, but at £700k per day that is a lot of money. Whilst we do need to move away from o&g, that is decades away. Why have a policy of killing it off when it makes the exchequer billions, it supports tens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs and like it or not, we are dependent on it for many, many things.

Posted by: guest1

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I didn't mean to pit one set of workers against another, or even one industry against another.

I just don't understand why our government (all parties) seem to want to kill off our oil & gas industry because of environmental reasons, despite the fact that with the best will in the world, we will still need oil based products for the foreseeable future. They seem happy that we will buy oil/gas from overseas, this reducing our 'national security ', yet if S*horpe closes and we need to buy steel from other countries it becomes an issue of 'national security '.

 

By all means, save S*horpe, but don't kill off the cash cow that is oil and gas!

Stanhope requires a particular type of coking coal to produce steel. This situation has nothing whatsoever to do with the oil and gas industries, it’s about being self sufficient in steel production, in particular virgin steel, as I believe it’s called, because it’s made directly from iron ore and carbon in the form of a specific type of coal. Most other steel is made from recycled scrap steel which is unsuitable for use in certain types of steel products.

Again, bugger-all to do with oil and gas! Oil and gas will be required for many years to come, particularly in some industries - gas for industrial applications, and oil for lubricants that all machinery requires in order to function. Your bike chain won’t last long without regular application of lubricant, as one particular example.

S****horpe, S****horpe, S****horpe, Grimsby.

Cool.

This situation has nothing whatsoever to do with the oil and gas industries,

other than comparing two critical industries - where one non profitable industry is being nationalised to continue to haemorrhage money under the gov watch. 

while the others being taxed into non profitability by the gov - to the point where any assets they are going to gain through nationalising will simply be a liability. 

you - unlike me will remember 3 day weeks and brown outs in the 70s surely. 

Its a very fair question. 

Scunny requires very little coal of any sort (small quantities of pulverized  coal are injected into the blast furnaces via tuyeres to help with temperature control) but the furnaces require coke as primary feed. Since both coke ovens have been closed Scunny now requires imported coke. Closure of the coke ovens has led to poor quality coke causing structural problems inside the furnaces (Queen Victoria) and no CO gas as byproduct; the gas was supplied to reheat furnaces in the mills and the steel making plant. Which in turn has left them without sufficient gas as they are still awaiting the completion of the gas connection to the national grid. 

Posted by: trail_rat

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Gas and oil are part of the history of the UK economy. Not its future.

Not in you or i's lifetime. 

Perhaps in my children's children's life's we might be free of our dependency on oil. 

And I'm not just blinkered to its requirements for energy creation

 

 

 

Got to cover winter high pressure events with something.   Unless someone sorts out hydrogen stirage or fusion it has to be fossil fuels.   Could be a very small part of the mix but there us nothig else viable right now

If you ignore the strategic implications and focus purely on the social, in theory great British energy exists to transfer jobs from oil and gas into renewables - Scotland will continue to provide a large proportion of the UKs energy. AFAIK there isn't an equivalent plan to save jobs long term in Scunhorpe so it makes sense that you can't let the plant close.

what about all the other chemical derivatives and manufacturing  that you cannot generate with a wind turbine? 

Yup oil and gas are really useful, criminal really that they mainly just get burnt.

Posted by: trail_rat

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you - unlike me will remember 3 day weeks and brown outs in the 70s surely.

I do, actually, although I don’t really have a clear understanding of all of the factors involved, certainly I do recall the unions being involved, and I developed a very jaundiced attitude to them, as I was forced to join a union because I worked in the print industry and they were enforcing the closed shop rule. 
This meant I had to join the NGA, which had the highest subs of any union, which meant I had to pay £1.50 out of my wage of around £10/week! And when I was threatened with redundancy, the local rep just shrugged and said they might have a job available in Frome, when I didn’t have a car!

Posted by: tjagain

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out hydrogen stirage or fusion it has to be fossil fuels.   Could be a very small part of the mix but there us nothig else viable right now

There’s nuclear. There’s a new reactor being constructed at Hinckley Point, and I believe another is likely to be given approval soon. I have no issues with nuclear to act as a backup to wind and solar, although a big solar farm is meeting a fair bit of pressure from the local nimbies, who don’t understand that the land isn’t concreted over, and can be used for livestock grazing as well.

I thought fission nuclear was best for baseload not fluctuating load.  It can't be turned on and off easily 

The one being built is decades late as well.

No nuclear for Scotland though. The SNP won't give planning permission.

Is being able to make virgin steel a benefit to national security if we have to import the iron ore? And, for blast furnaces, the coking coal or coke?

No nuclear for Scotland though. The SNP won't give planning permission.

 

 

Is that that a bad thing? . Our landscapes already been destroyed for hydro storage mass wind farms Nd massive pylons  to transport it to where it's needed.....in England....