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Sahaviriya Steel Industries relights Redcar blast furnace

The opportunity to continue to produce iron and steel from local (British) raw materials was lost when the steel works in Corby was closed, together with the coal mines with reserves of good quality coking coal, principally in Kent. These decisions were taken based on the financial prices of imported ores and coals. If economic values had been considered, Corby and the associated mines would still be open. The decision to import all coking coal was taken because because the financial prices of coal mined in the UK were higher than imported coal from Australia. At the time, the price evaluation indicated that the freight costs of coal from Kent to Teesside were higher than the imported coal from Australia, which was true, even considering that the imported coal had been carried by rail over 400 miles in Australia to the loading port, and then shipped half way around the World. This demonstrates the folly of using financial prices rather than economically evaluated ones, which seem to have gone out of favour. Little consideration was given to the importance of steel as a National strategic material, or to the effects on jobs. Redcar uses only imported ores and coals.

20 Apr 2012

8:46 pm