UK steelmakers ask for financing help

The China-based Jingye Group, owner of blast furnace operator British Steel, and India-based Tata Steel, which also operates a blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) complex in the United Kingdom, both are reportedly seeking government funds for operating costs.

Sky News reported in early October that Jingye’s British Steel was “seeking an urgent package of financial support from taxpayers” to underwrite its Scunthorpe operations in northern England.

About two weeks later, India-based publications including the Deccan Herald reported Tata Steel “Steel is likely to halt its operations in Britain” if it is unable to secure some $1.5 billion in funding for a proposed energy transition project. The Tata complex is at Port Talbot in Wales.

The owners of Britain's second-biggest steel producer are amid renewed fears for thousands of industrial jobs in the north of England.

The U.K. media said the Jingye-British Steel request provided a “major headache” for the newest iteration of the Conservative Party government of the U.K., which was put in place in September.

Some 4,000 jobs are tied to the Scunthorpe complex, according to Sky News, and the Chinese parent company is reportedly seeking assistance worth “hundreds of millions” of dollars.

The Deccan Herald and Economic Times (of India) reports on Tata Steel, meanwhile, say t ishe firm already making contingency plans to idle its two blast furnaces, as the firm judged it unlikely U.K. government funding was imminent.

The same two steelmakers were among the metals producers in the U.K. who also made bids for financial support when COVID-19 restrictions were imposed in 2020.