The government is set to nationalise British Steel, a year after stepping in to run the loss-making company and prevent its owner from shutting down operations.
It’s not that blast furnaces were unsustainable, it was that no-one wanted to order their steel. Unlike arc furnaces, blast furnaces are destroyed by the act of turning them off. As the government wanted a UK source of steel for military strategic reasons (but not the steel itself while cheaper imports were available) they were paying to keep the furnaces idling at a cost of £400k per day.
So we’ve just bought a failing company? That doesn’t sound good.
So I get that steel making might be a strategic national capability that we need to maintain, but is the government going to put the necessary investment into it? They seem incapable of investing in anything.
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It’s not that blast furnaces were unsustainable, it was that no-one wanted to order their steel. Unlike arc furnaces, blast furnaces are destroyed by the act of turning them off. As the government wanted a UK source of steel for military strategic reasons (but not the steel itself while cheaper imports were available) they were paying to keep the furnaces idling at a cost of £400k per day.
So we’ve just bought a failing company? That doesn’t sound good.
So I get that steel making might be a strategic national capability that we need to maintain, but is the government going to put the necessary investment into it? They seem incapable of investing in anything.