Preferential British Steel bidders, Jingye Group, are considering investing in a new steelmaking facility on the site of the former Teesside steelworks, according to sources close to the project quoted by the Financial Times on Jan 25.
The Chinese firm’s investment would focus on constructing a ferrous scrap-intensive electric arc furnace (EAF) in Redcar which could potentially feed British Steel’s 1mn mt/yr Teesside Beam Mill, rather than rail semi-finished steel products from the Scunthorpe facility.
A new EAF would benefit from the relatively abundant availability of ferrous scrap in the UK. The country consumed approximately 2.77mn mt locally compared to the 8.70mn mt it exported in 2018, according to Davis Index analysis.
It is not clear whether the Teesside investment is part of the initial £1.2bn investment plan or a pipeline project. This EAF project is unlikely to replace Scunthorpe’s blast furnaces, said the report, which added that Jingye declined to comment.