Customers drive emissions reduction, technology shift: British Steel
Customers are driving the emissions reduction efforts and technology shift by steelmakers, according to Chris Vaughan, technical director at British Steel.
“It’s important to reflect the reasons why we are shifting is a primary drive to drive down CO2 emissions, and the way that we are governed on that. It’s policy that’s driving it, it’s public perception, but the pace of change that’s really driving the removal of emissions and taking those to another level is the customer base,” he said at last week’s UK Metals Expo attended by Kallanish.
“Customers are driving the manufacturers to decarbonise as quickly, if not more quickly than the policy timescales with 2035 and net zero by 2050,” he added.
British Steel has a £1.25-billion ($1.65 billion) decarbonisation plan to shift away from blast furnaces to electric arc furnace, with planning permission for this secured in Scunthorpe and Teeside earlier this year.
Vaughan noted some of the challenges the firm is facing came from the customer base potentially switching to materials other than steel which lower emissions.
“They would consider other materials for construction, etc, if we are unable to decarbonise quickly enough to meet the aspirations of their timelines,” he said.
“The transition for us is about reduction in emissions. From a British Steel perspective and an integrated manufacturer currently, the vast majority of our emissions sit within scope 1, so when we talk to clients and customers and they’re looking at us to decarbonise their own downstream, it sits in their scope 3, but their scope 3 is our scope 1,” he added.
The move to EAF-based steelmaking makes sense for the UK, but other global locations may better suit other technologies. “There’s a set of circumstances that fit electrification for the UK and the drive towards EAF, but EAF is not the only technology and it will not be the only technology on a global scale for decarbonisation,” Vaughan observed.
“Globally, it’s got to be considered from geography, where you are in your economic cycle, what is the raw material access … where’s the infrastructure as well to allow that decarbonisation,” he continued.
Amid the UK-wide move away from blast furnaces, much of the conversation has focused on whether EAF technology will be sufficient for grades that have traditionally been produced via primary steelmaking.
“It’s been around a long time. We have domestic producers using EAF technology and have done for decades. It’s proven technology which we can capitalise on to help that shift,” he added. “All grades can be made from that [EAF] route; it’s what you feed the furnace, and the raw material input that drives that, in around working with the supply chain to achieve it as well.”
He also noted that EAF steelmaking would allow more flexibility. “Our current method within British steel on integrated production requires stability, it’s not easy to take capacity up and down … whereas the EAF allows you to respond more dynamically and flexibility to market requirements which gives the benefit to be able to tune your operation to what you’re facing from the market perspective,” Vaughan concluded.
Carrie Bone UK
British Steel bags Turkey rail contract
British Steel has won a multi-million-pound contract to supply rail to Turkey. It will deliver tens of thousands of tonnes of track for a new high-speed electric railway connecting Mersin with the cities of Adana, Osmaniye and Gaziantep.
It will help create a lower-emission transport link between Turkey’s second-largest container port and inland cities more than 150 miles away, with the project expected to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 150,000 tonnes/year, the steelmaker says.
UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK government’s export credit agency, has underwritten €781 million ($847m) of financing to support construction of the 286km railway.
“This is the start of what we expect to be a new unique partnership between British Steel, UKEF and international contractors,” British Steel commercial director – rail Craig Harvey says in a note sent to Kallanish. “The ability to combine world-leading quality rail with a world-leading finance solution for supply into global markets and networks is an unparalleled supply chain solution. Looking forward, we are very excited about what this will achieve.”
The first shipments of rail will be transported from British Steel to Turkey in the second quarter. It is manufactured in Scunthorpe and is 60E1 in grade R260, each at 36 metres in length.
Adam Smith Poland
British Steel production glitch sparks delivery delays
UK longs producer British Steel is delaying deliveries because of a problem with one of its blast furnaces, according to market sources.
The company has moved to one blast furnace, from two, because it is struggling to make pig iron of sufficient quality, the sources said. There are some suggestions that this could be caused by problems with a batch of imported coke. The company recently took its coking ovens off line with a view to reducing its carbon footprint — and the amount of emissions allowances it needs to buy — and has been importing coke since.
“We are taking decisive action to minimise the potential impact on customers’ orders caused by a production issue,” a company spokesperson told Argus. The spokesperson refused to comment further on the nature of the problem or how many blast furnaces are operating.
The company’s sales director has been ringing customers to inform them that deliveries could slip by 3-4 weeks as a result of the issue, multiple large domestic customers of the mill told Argus.
There are also suggestions that the company has insufficient gas for both its sections and wire rod mills, according to workers at the site and sources close to the company. The spokesperson refused to comment.
Senior officials from British Steel recently met with the head of Liberty Steel, Sanjeev Gupta, in Scunthorpe. It is unclear what was discussed, but sources said one topic could have been gas availability for Liberty Merchant Bar, the site previously operated on coke oven offgases from British Steel.
Others said the discussions could have been centred on state aid in light of the government’s £500mn grant to Tata Steel to help it decarbonise its operations. British Steel also has been in talks with the government and is looking to establish electric arc furnaces to reduce the carbon intensity of its production.
Source: argusmedia.com
