British Steel has submitted a planning application to North Lincolnshire Council for its proposed electric arc furnace in Scunthorpe.
This follows its application in December to Redcar and Cleveland Brough Council to build an EAF at Teesside Beam Mill.
The submissions are part of the steelmaker’s £1.25 billion ($1.58 billion) proposal to transform to electric arc furnace steelmaking. The proposal, still subject to approval by the UK government, would see one EAF each installed at the firm’s Scunthorpe headquarters and manufacturing site in Teesside, with commissioning potentially by end-2025 (see Kallanish passim).
The firm said in November it had agreed for its proposal to be reviewed by an external specialist on behalf of trade unions.
This comes after Tata Steel confirmed last month it was closing both blast furnaces at its Port Talbot works by year-end and commissioning a 3 million tonnes/year EAF by 2027. This was despite receiving an alternative proposal from unions and consultancy Syndex that advocated for blast furnace no.4 to remain operational alongside a smaller EAF until 2032.
While Tata Steel UK has secured $500 million in UK government funding for its EAF transformation, British Steel is yet to agree on its sum of funding.
“EAF technology is the only solution to significantly reducing our carbon emissions in a relatively short period of time. It is prudent to evaluate different operational scenarios to help us achieve our goals and we are continuing to assess our options. However, we firmly believe electrification will provide a rapid and sustainable solution to our decarbonisation challenge,” the Scunthorpe-based steelmaker says.
Adam Smith Poland
