Scunthorpe Steelworks - manufacture of steel rails

Lemmy99uk · 13 Apr 2025

British Steel announced 2 years ago, long before Labour were in power, that they would not be taking any coal from the Cumbrian mine.

RailUK Forums

superkev · 13 Apr 2025

I went on the rail tour of Scunthorpe a few years ago when the coke ovens were still working.
The site is absolotly massive with not just the 4 blast furnaces but various other facilities like rail production and continuous casting factories. Lots if dereliction too where some plants were closed.
I'm not sure who owns what there or is everything Briltish steel.
Didn't network rail have some financial interest in the rail mill.
K

Chester1 · 13 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
Attempting to operate a blast furnace without coke would require enormous amounts of supplementary heating.

Reduction of iron oxide with carbon and carbon monoxide is exothermic (it releases heat). Reduction of iron oxide with hydrogen is endothermic (it absorbs heat ).

I think you could probably make it work but it'd be cheaper to build a direct reduction ironworks

I read that contrary to popular belief electric furnaces can be used to make virgin steel but it requires very pure iron ore, that makes up only 4% of worlds supply? Is that accurate? Isn't hydrogen being researched for DRI instead of natural gas?

It does make sense to have one site in the UK being subsidised to produce virgin steel for national security reasons, at least until both furnaces at Scunthorpe are life expired. Something smaller and cheaper than Scunthorpe's current setup would be better!

HSTEd · 13 Apr 2025

Chester1 said:
I read that contrary to popular belief electric furnaces can be used to make virgin steel but it requires very pure iron ore, that makes up only 4% of worlds supply? Is that accurate?

I don't know what the specific value is, but it is currently expected to be a small fraction.
Of course the base of iron ore available is enormous, so I'm not sure how big a deal it is.

Beneficiation may also be able to upgrade ores to make them more suitable.
Such processes have been developed on and off in the UK due to the poor quality of the bulk of domestic ores.

Chester1 said:
Isn't hydrogen being researched for DRI instead of natural gas?

Yes, but it is probably not ready yet, given the limited supply of hydrogen.
If a MIDREX DRI plant was built it is claimed to be able to operate flexibly on natural gas and hydrogen or a combination (with higher hydrogen levels requiring installation of heaters).

EDIT:
There is increasing interest in a hybrid DRI system where low grade iron ore is reduced in a direct reduction plant, but then melted down in a separate electrically heated melting furnace. That allows slag to separate out before the iron is cast as if it was pig iron. This reduces problems downstream where excessive slag could cause large iron losses from the steelmaking furnace.

LNW-GW Joint · 14 Apr 2025

The Guardian reports on Network Rail's procurement policy for steel rails:

Network Rail has stockpiled a year’s worth of rails in case of British Steel disruption

Reserves would give six months to find alternative supply if Scunthorpe blast furnaces are switched off

www.theguardian.com

Many of the products made at Scunthorpe are readily available from other European suppliers. However, more than 80% of Britain’s rails come from the Lincolnshire plant. The stockpile would give Network Rail about six months to seek an alternative seller if the Scunthorpe blast furnaces are switched off, because of lead times in receiving orders from other sources.

Network Rail started considering the stockpile after Jingye announced in late 2023 that it was looking at replacing the blast furnaces with much cleaner electric arc furnaces. British Steel opened a new facility in November in Scunthorpe that will be able to store 25,000 tonnes of rails.

Network Rail already has flexible contracts with Austria’s Voestalpine and Germany’s Saarstahl that could fill the gap in supply if British Steel were to shut its blast furnaces before electric versions are up and running. Installing new electric arc furnaces, which do not rely on polluting coal, could take several years.

British Steel has said electric arc furnaces are suitable to make rails and other long products produced in Scunthorpe, although the conditions in the furnace need to be tightly controlled to avoid impurities. Network Rail has previously tested rails made in an electric arc furnace by Saarstahl.

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We do not expect the announcement to have any impact on the continued delivery of reliable rail services for passengers and freight users.

While the mood music is that the Scunthorpe blast furnaces and jobs are now secure, I doubt it will turn out like that long-term.
Competitive cost and net zero pressures will force new technology at Scunthorpe.
Network Rail/GBR has plenty of choice for supply of steel for rail, by electric arc furnaces if necessary.
NR will also be sourcing most of the rail for HS2 with its suppliers, with specialist supply by Voestalpine.

I also came across this map of steelmaking sites in Europe, taken from https://www.eurofer.eu/about-steel/learn-about-steel/where-is-steel-made-in-europe.

superkev · 14 Apr 2025

I'm with uk industrial electricity costs around triple that in France im not sure yhe uk investing in elecric arc furnaces will end well.
France is now reaping the rewards of a managed 15year energy investment program where here I winder if our short term thinking politicians could run a bath.
K

Gostav · 14 Apr 2025

superkev said:
I'm with uk industrial electricity costs around triple that in France im not sure yhe uk investing in elecric arc furnaces will end well.
France is now reaping the rewards of a managed 15year energy investment program where here I winder if our short term thinking politicians could run a bath.
K

For industrial electricity, the most practical and cheap source is hydroelectric power stations but there appear to be very few in the UK.

Chester1 · 14 Apr 2025

superkev said:
I'm with uk industrial electricity costs around triple that in France im not sure yhe uk investing in elecric arc furnaces will end well.
France is now reaping the rewards of a managed 15year energy investment program where here I winder if our short term thinking politicians could run a bath.
K

There does seem to be political consensus now and that makes long term planning much easier. There is already a system in place for steel plants to pay lower electricity costs and they can be brought down to French and German levels without causing a dispute with the EU. The intervention has come at the right time. It's tough for towns that have lost their steel works but any more than one blast furnace in the UK wouldn't be about national security, it would be a bung for votes.

Some of the reaction of Welsh nationalists has been very grievance promoting. Port Talbot is having a £1.25bn investment to build the worlds largest electric furnace. Planning permission has been granted, the site is being cleared and the parts for the furnace have started being ordered. The town has a challenging couple of years ahead but there is a good plan in place.

I am a bit cynical and reckon NR will be nudged to keep buying from British Steel once it's nationalised to prop up another state owned company but it's good to know that rails are made with recycled steel elsewhere.

Bryson · 14 Apr 2025

LNW-GW Joint said:
The Guardian reports on Network Rail's procurement policy for steel rails:

Network Rail has stockpiled a year’s worth of rails in case of British Steel disruption

Reserves would give six months to find alternative supply if Scunthorpe blast furnaces are switched off

www.theguardian.com

While the mood music is that the Scunthorpe blast furnaces and jobs are now secure, I doubt it will turn out like that long-term.
Competitive cost and net zero pressures will force new technology at Scunthorpe.
Network Rail/GBR has plenty of choice for supply of steel for rail, by electric arc furnaces if necessary.
NR will also be sourcing most of the rail for HS2 with its suppliers, with specialist supply by Voestalpine.

I also came across this map of steelmaking sites in Europe, taken from https://www.eurofer.eu/about-steel/learn-about-steel/where-is-steel-made-in-europe.

View attachment 178313

The large scale rail producers are:

Voestalpine Dornawitz, Arcelor Mittal Gijon, Arcelor Mittal Dabrowa, Saarstahl Hayange (not shown on the map because the steel comes from Saarstahl St. Saulve - Ascoval).

HSTEd · 14 Apr 2025

Chester1 said:
There does seem to be political consensus now and that makes long term planning much easier. There is already a system in place for steel plants to pay lower electricity costs and they can be brought down to French and German levels without causing a dispute with the EU. The intervention has come at the right time. It's tough for towns that have lost their steel works but any more than one blast furnace in the UK wouldn't be about national security, it would be a bung for votes.

I'd say all of this is a bung for votes - unless a steel capability can make use of domestic ores it is of little national security value. The last ironworks that could operate entirely on domestic ores closed in the early 1970s.

Additionally, hidng subsidies to the plant by forcing everyone else to pay for its electricity does not make the subsidy disappear.

The current mess with Scunthorpe involves spending ~£220m/yr forever to avoid closure costs that the government claims are of the order of a billion pounds. It's a loan with similar terms to a credit card!

Chester1 said:
Planning permission has been granted, the site is being cleared and the parts for the furnace have started being ordered. The town has a challenging couple of years ahead but there is a good plan in place.

I don't think it will really matter, the electric furnace will employ a small fraction of the number of staff employed by the previous integrated steel facility.
The net result for the town is similar to a total closure. A facility that previously employed thousands will employ hundreds.

If iron/steelmaking wants to be remotely competitive in the UK, it will never be a mass employment industry ever again.

Indigo Soup · 14 Apr 2025

WAO said:
Just another inconvenient truth for the zero Carbon lobby.

You can do virgin steel production with hydrogen instead of carbon, but it's a fundamentally different process (direct reduction, as mentioned) from that used in 'traditional' steelworks.

Making that zero-carbon does then rely on a non-hydrocarbon source of hydrogen and of the necessary process heat.

HSTEd said:
I'd say all of this is a bung for votes - unless a steel capability can make use of domestic ores it is of little national security value.

Some of the specialist steels used for certain applications aren't readily available commodities. Not necessarily unobtainable, but one might not want to wait for a third party to find a production slot. That said, the actual alloying process is separate from the reduction of the ore, and suitable feedstock is certain to be imported anyway.

HSTEd said:
If iron/steelmaking wants to be remotely competitive in the UK, it will never be a mass employment industry ever again.

That's the fundamental problem that the UK's industrial policy has faced for at least 80 years: is it more important to be competitive in the open market, or to maintain employment?

WAO · 14 Apr 2025

Indigo Soup said:
You can do virgin steel production with hydrogen instead of carbon, but it's a fundamentally different process (direct reduction, as mentioned) from that used in 'traditional' steelworks.

Making that zero-carbon does then rely on a non-hydrocarbon source of hydrogen and of the necessary process heat.

Scientists "can" do lots of things in the laboratory but Engineers have to restrict themselves to practical, cost-effective processes.

The Government statement is quite clear why "virgin" steel (from smelted ore) is needed strategically, not as a job creation scheme.

The sourcing of coking coal and perhaps iron ore will also have to be faced, as well as the replacement of the present blast furnaces when life expired.

WAO

HSTEd · 14 Apr 2025

WAO said:
Scientists "can" do lots of things in the laboratory but Engineers have to restrict themselves to practical, cost-effective processes.

Direct Reduced Iron is the fastest growing portion of the primary iron supply, and is far from a non economical process. Recent stats have it growing at nearly 8% per annum
The natural gas/hydrogen fuel and its minimal staffing requirements are extraordinarily attractive.

A direct reduction facility with comparable output to the operational furnaces at Scunthorpe (~2 million tonnes/yr) in the US employs around 170 staff, not 2000.

WAO said:
The Government statement is quite clear why "virgin" steel (from smelted ore) is needed strategically, not as a job creation scheme.

I don't think the strategic argument washes though because the facilities are more or less useless without imported ore.
If you can import iron ore you can import iron - just as imports of iron ore were replaced with imported iron during the Second World War to conserve shipping.

The government appears to just be desperate to not be the one that is remembered for "killing the steel industry"

WAO · 14 Apr 2025

....so when is this proposed for Scunthorpe?

WAO

HSTEd · 14 Apr 2025

WAO said:
....so when is this proposed for Scunthorpe?

WAO

Well prior to the de-facto nationalisation, never, because there is no economic driver at this time for a DRI facility or for operating a blast furnace. Which is why the ownership was going to shut the blast furnaces down.

The government's position now appears to be to pour money into the black hole of 1950s blast furnaces indefinitely.

The cost of a new blast furnace based steel complex, complete with all the trimmings, would be absolutely enormous.

WAO · 14 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
there is no economic driver at this time for a DRI facility or for operating a blast furnace.

That's probably true for every product and service in the UK.

Unfortunately, unless someone buys some UK grown goods, there is eventually no money in the home economy to buy those "cheaper" foreign goods.

I doubt if (even) HM Treasury would buy an obsolete iron/steel plant!

WAO

Chester1 · 14 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
I'd say all of this is a bung for votes - unless a steel capability can make use of domestic ores it is of little national security value. The last ironworks that could operate entirely on domestic ores closed in the early 1970s.

Additionally, hidng subsidies to the plant by forcing everyone else to pay for its electricity does not make the subsidy disappear.

The current mess with Scunthorpe involves spending ~£220m/yr forever to avoid closure costs that the government claims are of the order of a billion pounds. It's a loan with similar terms to a credit card!

One blast furnace means one less national security risk than importing. The subsidy is time limited by the age of the furnaces (built in the 1930s and 1950s) and by the overwhelming odds that one of the two will be shut in the next year or so.

HSTEd said:
I don't think it will really matter, the electric furnace will employ a small fraction of the number of staff employed by the previous integrated steel facility.
The net result for the town is similar to a total closure. A facility that previously employed thousands will employ hundreds.

If iron/steelmaking wants to be remotely competitive in the UK, it will never be a mass employment industry ever again.

Tata will go from employing 4000 people in Port Talbot to 2100 once the plan is completed. It's a big hit but it will still be a massive employer for the town. It's very comparable with what Scunthorpe faces if (or when) its older blast furnace is shut down.

I agree with your final paragraph. It's really saying something when replacing 2 blast furnaces with the world's biggest EAF results in the loss of 1900 jobs. The proposed (unfunded) facility to build parts for wind turbines at Port Talbot would create just 300 additional jobs. The in doubt plans for a British Steel EAF at Teeside would add just 250 jobs to the 400 people already employed by them in Teeside at their Beam Mill.

WAO said:
....so when is this proposed for Scunthorpe?

WAO

I would be surprised if DRI goes to Scunthorpe. The government will only be prepared to fund a facility with a realistic prospect of using hydrogen at some point in the 2030s. The British Steel site at Teeside would be a better location in that respect. It is nearer to chemical works and large amounts of wind power to make green hydrogen.

HSTEd · 15 Apr 2025

Chester1 said:
One blast furnace means one less national security risk than importing.

It just converts the national security risk from a difficulty in obtaining iron to a difficulty in obtaining suitable iron ore.
Given the geographic dispersal of ironmaking, the idea of not being able to obtain enough iron for national security requirements during a crisis, whilst being able to acquire a comparable amount of iron ore seems a little silly to me.

Chester1 said:
The subsidy is time limited by the age of the furnaces (built in the 1930s and 1950s) and by the overwhelming odds that one of the two will be shut in the next year or so.

Closing the furnace would require the government to make a decision to make people redundant and to take a knife to the infrastructure they have just made a huge song and dance of 'saving'.

I don't think they will, I think they pay for the required furnace refurbishment and the continuation of operation for the forseeable.

Shutting down one furnace may not reduce subsidy that much due to further losses of economies of scale and the inability to amortise the support services on the site.

hwl · 15 Apr 2025

Chester1 said:
One blast furnace means one less national security risk than importing. The subsidy is time limited by the age of the furnaces (built in the 1930s and 1950s) and by the overwhelming odds that one of the two will be shut in the next year or so.

Tata will go from employing 4000 people in Port Talbot to 2100 once the plan is completed. It's a big hit but it will still be a massive employer for the town. It's very comparable with what Scunthorpe faces if (or when) its older blast furnace is shut down.

I agree with your final paragraph. It's really saying something when replacing 2 blast furnaces with the world's biggest EAF results in the loss of 1900 jobs. The proposed (unfunded) facility to build parts for wind turbines at Port Talbot would create just 300 additional jobs. The in doubt plans for a British Steel EAF at Teeside would add just 250 jobs to the 400 people already employed by them in Teeside at their Beam Mill.

I would be surprised if DRI goes to Scunthorpe. The government will only be prepared to fund a facility with a realistic prospect of using hydrogen at some point in the 2030s. The British Steel site at Teeside would be a better location in that respect. It is nearer to chemical works and large amounts of wind power to make green hydrogen.

HSTEd said:
It just converts the national security risk from a difficulty in obtaining iron to a difficulty in obtaining suitable iron ore.
Given the geographic dispersal of ironmaking, the idea of not being able to obtain enough iron for national security requirements during a crisis, whilst being able to acquire a comparable amount of iron ore seems a little silly to me.

Closing the furnace would require the government to make a decision to make people redundant and to take a knife to the infrastructure they have just made a huge song and dance of 'saving'.

I don't think they will, I think they pay for the required furnace refurbishment and the continuation of operation for the forseeable.

Shutting down one furnace may not reduce subsidy that much due to further losses of economies of scale and the inability to amortise the support services on the site.

I have my doubts on where Jingye would have delivered some or any of the proposed EAF at either Scunthorpe or Teeside and would have just settled on importing Chinese steel instead after closing the blast furnaces.

Productive output per worker in the steel industry has improved almost 1000x since the end of WW1 but this seems to go unnoticed in the general populations thinking "steel = lots of jobs".

With the government in "control" it now makes EAF construction far more likely as it is very politically damaging not to. Also phased closure of the furnaces is much more likely as it.

In general there is a crunch point coming in the next few years where the government can no longer kick the can down the road as previous ones have on the current taxes /levies on electricity (lots) and gas (not much) to address electricity prices and climate aims. (this should have happened a while ago but governments love to kick the can down the road.)

The increase in additional wind and solar coming on stream over the next year or two might help the finally undermine the unhelpful influence of gas in the marginal pricing mechanisms.

Peter Mugridge · 15 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
Closing the furnace would require the government to make a decision to make people redundant and to take a knife to the infrastructure they have just made a huge song and dance of 'saving'.

I don't think they will, I think they pay for the required furnace refurbishment and the continuation of operation for the forseeable.

Shutting down one furnace may not reduce subsidy that much due to further losses of economies of scale and the inability to amortise the support services on the site.

How long can a blast furnace be kept going, with refurbishment? I know they're obviously extremely tough and well built pieces of equipment, but they presumably do have a limit on their ultimate length of life?

Indigo Soup · 15 Apr 2025

Peter Mugridge said:
How long can a blast furnace be kept going, with refurbishment? I know they're obviously extremely tough and well built pieces of equipment, but they presumably do have a limit on their ultimate length of life?

It looks like the average blast furnace goes an average of 17 years between needing major refurbishment, but can run up to 25 or 30 years. Given that one of the factors influencing their service life is the refractory bricks, I expect that it's possible to do a cheaper refurbishment by fitting thinner bricks.

It looks like two of Scunthorpe's blast furnaces were refurbished in 2014, giving them 11 years of operation, and that the other two aren't operating.

HSTEd · 15 Apr 2025

Peter Mugridge said:
How long can a blast furnace be kept going, with refurbishment? I know they're obviously extremely tough and well built pieces of equipment, but they presumably do have a limit on their ultimate length of life?

My understanding is that no strictly life limiting phenomenon has become apparent, yet anyway.

The furnaces will normally continue until the passage of time renders them uneconomical to operate, mostly on account of the steadily increasingly size of new furnaces.

Chester1 · 15 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
It just converts the national security risk from a difficulty in obtaining iron to a difficulty in obtaining suitable iron ore.
Given the geographic dispersal of ironmaking, the idea of not being able to obtain enough iron for national security requirements during a crisis, whilst being able to acquire a comparable amount of iron ore seems a little silly to me.

Closing the furnace would require the government to make a decision to make people redundant and to take a knife to the infrastructure they have just made a huge song and dance of 'saving'.

I don't think they will, I think they pay for the required furnace refurbishment and the continuation of operation for the forseeable.

Shutting down one furnace may not reduce subsidy that much due to further losses of economies of scale and the inability to amortise the support services on the site.

hwl said:
I have my doubts on where Jingye would have delivered some or any of the proposed EAF at either Scunthorpe or Teeside and would have just settled on importing Chinese steel instead after closing the blast furnaces.

Productive output per worker in the steel industry has improved almost 1000x since the end of WW1 but this seems to go unnoticed in the general populations thinking "steel = lots of jobs".

With the government in "control" it now makes EAF construction far more likely as it is very politically damaging not to. Also phased closure of the furnaces is much more likely as it.

In general there is a crunch point coming in the next few years where the government can no longer kick the can down the road as previous ones have on the current taxes /levies on electricity (lots) and gas (not much) to address electricity prices and climate aims. (this should have happened a while ago but governments love to kick the can down the road.)

The increase in additional wind and solar coming on stream over the next year or two might help the finally undermine the unhelpful influence of gas in the marginal pricing mechanisms.

Wasn't the unions alternative plan for Port Talbot to replace one furnace with an EAF quickly and the other in 2032? It seems unlikely that the government will commit to two blast furnaces at Scunthorpe indefinitely. Closing one in next couple of years and the other once it needs refurbishment in the 2030s would give time to build a DRI plant somewhere in the UK.

Meerkat · 20 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
I don't think the strategic argument washes though because the facilities are more or less useless without imported ore.
If you can import iron ore you can import iron - just as imports of iron ore were replaced with imported iron during the Second World War to conserve shipping.

Are the sources of iron as varied as the sources of iron ore, and which has faster increases in scale?

HSTEd · 20 Apr 2025

Meerkat said:
Are the sources of iron as varied as the sources of iron ore, and which has faster increases in scale?

Sufficient iron to meet current defence requirements can be sourced from literally dozens of countries, on all the truly inhabited continents.

And if iron production can't scale up, then it doesn't matter if iron ore production can, because the bottleneck will still apply.

Meerkat · 20 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
Sufficient iron to meet current defence requirements can be sourced from literally dozens of countries, on all the truly inhabited continents.

And if iron production can't scale up, then it doesn't matter if iron ore production can, because the bottleneck will still apply.

Current defence requirements. What happens when everyone wants more and starts blocking exports or refusing to supply particular countries. Thinking of the Covid problems when everyone was chasing supplies of PPE etc, or how everyone wants bits for missiles in the wake of the Ukraine War.
If it’s in your own country you can subsidise a scale up, prioritise who gets deliveries etc etc

HSTEd · 20 Apr 2025

Meerkat said:
Current defence requirements.

Sorry, should have said "plausible defence requirements". Current defence requirements are essentially negligible.

Meerkat said:
What happens when everyone wants more and starts blocking exports or refusing to supply particular countries. Thinking of the Covid problems when everyone was chasing supplies of PPE etc, or how everyone wants bits for missiles in the wake of the Ukraine War.
If it’s in your own country you can subsidise a scale up, prioritise who gets deliveries etc etc

We fought WW2 with only about 12 million tonnes of steel production (half of which used imported iron from North America) per annum, which is less than 1% of today's global output.
With that Britain buried its enemies in a deluge of shells and vehicles and supplied enough materiel to keep numerous huge Commonwealth and minor allied armies in the field.

There is no realistic scenario in which availability of iron is a limiting factor on our ability to manufacture defence materiel. We will run out of a huge laundry list of other things before steel.

And as noted, we just shift this dependency on overseas supplies to supplies of high grade ore usable by the current plant infrastructure.
Which are, if anything, more concentrated than ironmaking.

An iron industry justified on the basis of national security must use only domestic ore raw materials in order to actually function in a national security relevant capacity.

Meerkat · 20 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
We fought WW2 with only about 12 million tonnes of steel production (half of which used imported iron from North America) per annum, which is less than 1% of today's global output.

World Demand has gone up a tad…..

Indigo Soup · 21 Apr 2025

HSTEd said:
Current defence requirements are essentially negligible.

One can reasonably argue whether 'current defence demand' might not be a rather smaller figure than 'current defence requirements', and whether 'national security' is restricted to merely 'defence'. But you'd need a rather broad scope to get anywhere close to justifying a more than nominal ironmaking capability.

HSTEd said:
There is no realistic scenario in which availability of iron is a limiting factor on our ability to manufacture defence materiel. We will run out of a huge laundry list of other things before steel.

Among other things, the alloying materials required to make good steel, which are often overlooked.

For that matter - running a blast furnace also requires a reliable source of good-quality coking coal, and of limestone. The latter isn't usually a problem, but it doesn't come from nowhere!

Scunthorpe Steelworks - manufacture of steel rails

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