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Steel Crisis

As no one has made a topic yet thought I best do as it is very close to my heart plus it is finally making national news.
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What is everyone's viewpoint on the crisis facing the British Steel industry today?

Tata Steel job cuts: Industry is 'in crisis'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34561630 (one of the many articles out there)



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Thank you Baroness Thatcher.
Original post by Little Toy Gun
Thank you Baroness Thatcher.



You believe that a woman who has been dead for more than 2 years and was out of power for 13 years before has caused demand for steel in China to evaporate?


In the year the Labour government fell in 2010 the UK produced 9.7 million tons of steel. Last year it produced 12 million tons.
Reply 3
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Darren96
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Original post by nulli tertius
You believe that a woman who has been dead for more than 2 years and was out of power for 13 years before has caused demand for steel in China to evaporate?


In the year the Labour government fell in 2010 the UK produced 9.7 million tons of steel. Last year it produced 12 million tons.


I am expecting a lot of people to blame the government when the problems have been here for decades.


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Original post by Little Toy Gun
Thank you Baroness Thatcher.
Her foresight and plans for the future was impeccable. Imagine how worse of the UK would have been due to China's dumping if the coal and steel industries had never been closed down!
Original post by Darren96
I am expecting a lot of people to blame the government when the problems have been here for decades.


I am not sure there is a problem with the British steel industry any more. It is more a problem with the world. Steel is a relatively simply commodity that can be manufactured anywhere in the world subject to the cost of shipping raw materials and finished products. Half the steel in the world comes from China.

Demand is cyclical with the economic cycle and the cost of shipping tends to fall when the demand for steel falls.

Most demand is in the industrialising countries of south east Asia that also have their own large production facilities. We are net exporters of steel. Therefore our industry is extremely vulnerable to shifts in foreign demand.

There has been a surfeit of capacity throughout the European steel industry since WWII (the EU-the Coal and Steel Community-was founded to ensure an orderly reduction in that capacity). That excess capacity has largely been due to productivity gains.

In the 1960s the UK tried a policy of holding back productivity gains. The result was that over a quarter of a million men produced 28 million tons of steel (the peak year) in 1970. That was the economics of the madhouse. In 2014 just 20,000 men produced 12 million tons of steel.
Reply 6
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Rakas21
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If we can attempt to save a bit of industry without subsidy (preventing foreign control may reduce outsourcing) then I'm all for it but this is hardly a shock.

For the first time since the 30's, 2015 may see global trade decline while the global economy grows. That's a backdrop which suggests very little pressure to push commodity prices up anytime quickly.

Unless you guys can figure out a way to produce an abundant resource even cheaper than the likes of China then your just going to have to accept that until the next price rebound, our commodity industries will struggle.
Original post by Darren96
As no one has made a topic yet thought I best do as it is very close to my heart plus it is finally making national news.
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ImageUploadedByStudent Room1445117612.440523.jpg

What is everyone's viewpoint on the crisis facing the British Steel industry today?

Tata Steel job cuts: Industry is 'in crisis'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34561630 (one of the many articles out there)



Posted from TSR Mobile


Over production and foreign producers are more competitive than uk producers.
Don't hold me on this, but I'm reading that Redcar was a producer of semi-finished steel slabs, and was originally bought by the new owners SSI of Thailand as a feedstock plant for their own steel production at home. The UK cannot be competitive at this end of the market.

But steel is necessarily just steel. Instead I think we should be seeing if we can be competitive on the production of higher end grades of steel that are currently more difficult to find on the market.
Original post by nulli tertius
You believe that a woman who has been dead for more than 2 years and was out of power for 13 years before has caused demand for steel in China to evaporate?


In the year the Labour government fell in 2010 the UK produced 9.7 million tons of steel. Last year it produced 12 million tons.


Maggie the Queen's impact is eternal.
Original post by Bupdeeboowah
Her foresight and plans for the future was impeccable. Imagine how worse of the UK would have been due to China's dumping if the coal and steel industries had never been closed down!


This!

People are so stupid, do they think British steel is better than Chinese steel? It's the same crap and we have higher costs because we are a developed nation.


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We simply cannot afford to compete in a large number of manufacturing industries on cost grounds any more. Workers are more expensive here thanks to unions and employment laws. China and India will always be able to undercut western European prices, and the demand for steel is largely based upon BRIC requirements. The problems facing the steel industry in this country should not come as a surprise to anyone, and it would hardly be surprising to see it disappear from the UK altogether in the next decade. Nothing to do with Thatcher, obviously.
Original post by paul514
This!

People are so stupid, do they think British steel is better than Chinese steel? It's the same crap and we have higher costs because we are a developed nation.


Actually it's not "all the same crap" - not only can different processes produce different qualities of steel, but there are many, many different grades of steel, for different applications.

When designing with British steel you do not need to de-rate its strength in Eurocode, as the British steel industry is considered advanced enough such that the steel it produces can be guaranteed to be at or above the specified strength. However I'm not sure whether this also applies to Chinese steel as I have never (knowingly) designed using it.

The American Institute of Steel Construction has also issued warnings on the quality of Chinese steel.

Of course, semi-finished steel slabs are not going to be competitively produced in the UK. But I do think we can be competitive in producing finished, higher grade products.
Original post by Smack
Actually it's not "all the same crap" - not only can different processes produce different qualities of steel, but there are many, many different grades of steel, for different applications.

When designing with British steel you do not need to de-rate its strength in Eurocode, as the British steel industry is considered advanced enough such that the steel it produces can be guaranteed to be at or above the specified strength. However I'm not sure whether this also applies to Chinese steel as I have never (knowingly) designed using it.

The American Institute of Steel Construction has also issued warnings on the quality of Chinese steel.

Of course, semi-finished steel slabs are not going to be competitively produced in the UK. But I do think we can be competitive in producing finished, higher grade products.


The Chinese will make high grade too! It's the same crap!

If it wasn't the places wouldn't be closing down.

It's called supply and demand


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Original post by paul514
The Chinese will make high grade too! It's the same crap!

If it wasn't the places wouldn't be closing down.

It's called supply and demand


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Did you actually read my post?
Original post by Smack
Did you actually read my post?


Obviously


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Look how much the UK's steel production and number of workers employed in the industry fell while Labour was in government (hint: both numbers almost halved) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34578119

I bet it won't be long before some of the usual lunatic Labour standard-bearers on this site come along and try and blame the Tories/Cameron/austerity/capitalism for the current state of the industry.
Original post by Duncan2012
Look how much the UK's steel production and number of workers employed in the industry fell while Labour was in government (hint: both numbers almost halved) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34578119

I bet it won't be long before some of the usual lunatic Labour standard-bearers on this site come along and try and blame the Tories/Cameron/austerity/capitalism for the current state of the industry.


The same people who tend to advocate uncompetitive Victorian based manufacturing methodologies as they're labour intensive and the unions like those providing they get tax payer bailouts (subsidies)
Reply 18
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L i b
19
Original post by Smack
Of course, semi-finished steel slabs are not going to be competitively produced in the UK. But I do think we can be competitive in producing finished, higher grade products.


The question then surely arises: why aren't we? Why does it seem that the steel industry cannot operate profitably in many of the plants that are likely to close?
Original post by MatureStudent36
The same people who tend to advocate uncompetitive Victorian based manufacturing methodologies as they're labour intensive and the unions like those providing they get tax payer bailouts (subsidies)


Now, this is all well and good, I love productivity. But what I don't get about your sort is you then turn around and say it's bad that we then have a lot of people unemployed and they must be lazy etc.

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