Why is the government in a ‘race against time’ to keep the Scunthorpe blast furnaces running?

On Saturday, Parliament passed an emergency law giving the government powers to intervene in the British Steel plant at Scunthorpe, which was reportedly in danger of being closed by its Chinese owners, Jingye.  

Despite this, the plant reportedly remains in a “race against time” to obtain the raw materials needed to maintain operations at its two operational blast furnaces. 

But what does this actually mean?

A blast furnace is a large steel cylinder lined with refractory bricks. These can be thought of as extremely high-performance versions of the bricks used to line kilns or pizza ovens, capable of operating at temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees celsius. 

Raw materials, including iron ore, coke (a specific kind of coal) and limestone, are added to the top of the furnace, while air heated to around 1,000 degrees celsius is blasted into the bottom of the furnace. As the materials heat, the temperature rises to above 2,000 degrees, creating pure liquid iron which sinks to the bottom of the furnace where it can be collected. 

Blast furnaces are designed to operate continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a number of years, which means a steady supply of raw materials must always be on hand. 

With the plant reportedly losing £700,000 per day, there have been concerns about maintaining the flow of supplies required to keep the furnaces running. This was confirmed when Parliament was recalled on Saturday 12 April, with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds saying: “it has become clear that the intention of Jingye was to refuse to purchase sufficient raw materials to keep the blast furnaces running. In fact, its intention was to cancel and refuse to pay for existing orders.”

If the flow of materials is interrupted, the temperature inside the furnaces will begin to fall. If this happens the lining of the furnaces could be damaged, making it unsafe to return them to a higher temperature. If the furnaces continue to cool further, there is a risk any metal inside can turn into a solid lump, potentially rendering the entire structures useless. 

It’s not immediately clear how much the government’s decision to step in will cost—it has said that funding for the site will come from the government’s £2.5 billion steel fund.

However, experts have said that ordering the raw materials required to keep the furnaces running will be less costly than if the furnaces were to require restarting.