Final movements at Tata Steel UK's Blending Plant

[@kennyweir7782]

Very emotional video, and having been through this myself as a foreman on Ravenscraig’s No 1 Blast Furnace in the 80s and early 90s, I totally get it.

[@carbide1]

We shut a blast furnace down in the UK, Tata is building a new blast furnce in India. Im afraid we are just moving the CO2 around from one country to another.

[@handleonhere]

India while one of the largest producers still has to import some steel, so no, idt that's being made for your use. Also EU has tarrifs and I'm sure Britain does to. Your gov. gave Tata a lot of problems, unnecessary fines, I'm surprised they still operate there, they should just close shop.

[@simonbrown7455]

And loosing more money.

[@andypandy9931]

As someone who has worked as a manufacturing engineer all my working life I despair t the decision to let this plant go. Unfortunately the people running this country have absolutely no understanding that steel production is vital to the country. Where are all the many speciaiized grades of steel which I have used all my working life going to come from. certainly not from remelting scrap.

[@hypergolic8468]

I can only give one thumbs up sadly. YES! What the hell are we doing. Even in two World Wars we never had steel works destroyed like this. Still don't understand why the order was not given to Rolls Royce for the SMRs to replace the coal fired power stations blown up with so many smiles by our politicians. We need cheaper power 24/7.

[@trs4u]

Isn't that why they ended this video on "change" instead of "end"? British Steel claim they can do it all with EAF on their website. EAF might be the 'poor cousin' of blast right now, but there's no reason to believe we can't mostly recycle scrap into whatever we want - it's just a question of scrap quality and having sufficient cheap (properly cheap this time) energy for the most exotic processes? Mining isn't forever sustainable, even ignoring its other problems. The more essential primary commodities the UK can *fully* recycle, the more independent/secure we are. That has to be a good thing.

[@martinjones4776]

One of the requirements to be classed as a first world nation used to be the countries ability to process raw materials into steel. From what I understand you cannot continually recycle steel, does an arc furnace give you the ability to add elements back in that are lost in the reheating process? Think paint tin that has been in a fire, the steel has lost any ductile properties & just crumbles.

[@trs4u]

@@martinjones4776 not sure about your "first world requirements": what about those tiny 'countries' where everyone is rich and nobody does anything as sordid as industrial labour? I'd prefer the UK didn't become one, but it has been a while since we were really able to 'stand on our own two feet'. How third world are we by that measure? Rationally, chemical engineering should be able to recover elemental resources from any waste. The practical issue is how much energy/money that requires. British Steel says they can make all kinds on their website, but at the head of the list of provisos is quality of feedstock. It is worrying that we're in a position of weighing global corporate promises against social media weaselling. It's a shame we don't have apparently independent sources who we believe 'are us' telling us "everything's going to be all right". I think trust is what we've really lost across the decades.

[@Dave-sv1pu]

@@martinjones4776 Steel can be recycled infinitely.

[@notional67]

Excellent film, very informative and must be hard to do this when you’re going through such a tough transition. Thank you.

[@xboy3521]

Industrial vandalism😢

[@James-bc1jk]

I agree always the working man that takes the hit while mps fill there pockets with our money

[@THUGPUTIN]

Greta thunberg got money from China and literally destroyed life's of people while becoming rich 😂

[@jamieg7874]

Fairly new to the steel industry, only 3 years! But with working on the raw material side myself, its heartbreaking seeing a furnace close and loss of jobs!

[@towy-fisher]

The writing was on the wall for years. Drakeford considered Port Talbot a thorn in the side of his green agenda. South Wales is being dismantled one piece at a time. The argument for the M4 relief road will soon be irrelevant.

[@welshhibby]

“Positive change” easy to say when you’re not losing your job.

[@johnroberts9071]

Any chance of a video explaining the process of decommissioning the blast furnaces?

[@TataSteelUK]

Hi John, we're going to cover as much as we possibly can, including the final day of the heavy end and the decommissioning processes of the assets. Thanks for watching.

[@geoffisaac3511]

You can't dig scrap out of the ground like iron ore so what happens when we run out of scrap Mr Green lover's?

[@TataSteelUK]

The UK currently exports 8-10 million tonnes of steel scrap each year, only to buy it back as recycled steel products. We will be using 2-2.5 million tonnes of that steel scrap in our electric arc furnace. This means no dependancy on other countries for raw materials and a lower carbon footprint.

[@gavinthomas5802]

Easy saying posative things about the future for tata steel when your job is secure!

[@Baron-Ortega]

This is awful. Yet more economic vandalism perpetrated on our once great industrial country. Those overseeing this should be ashamed.

[@chriswalford4161]

What exactly are you blending - straight ores? Or are you adding in other ingredients, like coke or limestone, into the blend at this stage? And what’s the objective of blending? I was watching expecting the answer, but you didn’t cover it.

[@TataSteelUK]

Hi Chris, sorry this wasn't addressed in more detail during the video. The Blending Plant typically blend combined mix of ores including hematite, magnetite and goethite. They will have varying qualities of chemical variances and size fractions, so to fine tune those they will be blended with fuels and fluxes (typically limestone and coke breeze). We also mix waste materials from other areas of the business as a form of recycling. The ultimate reason for blending - or layering - is to reduce the variability in the materials going into the furnace.

[@trs4u]

What happens with the leftovers if you don't end on that "sixpence" - is there someone who'll buy small amounts of ore?

[@TataSteelUK]

Great question. We have to order raw materials weeks in advance as they come from overseas, and obviously we didn't want to be in a position where we'd run out of raw materials so would have to close the furnace earlier than planned. Any surplus materials will be sold.

[@geoffisaac3511]

​@@TataSteelUKor land fill somewhere

[@HanzelikR]

British deindustrialization. Same deintustrialization happened here in Romania in the early 2000's.

[@NihilisticHedonism]

Port Talbot is Tata Steel, there is no Port Talbot without Tata Steel

[@fman02]

Once upon a time it was British Steel. Maggie sorted that one.

[@garethdavies2538]

@@fman02 In my day it was the Steel Company of Wales!

[@interceptor-ss8kb]

It was better before Tata took over. Watched Tata destroy scunthorpe steel works literally next to nothing investment over the years tata run it

[@ScorchedEarthTactician]

@@interceptor-ss8kbthe government choked Tata out of any profits on the contrary they were operating sustaining losses , its more surprising to see that they did not close the shop earlier

[@interceptor-ss8kb]

​@micahbellthe3rd3 They never did anything they promised when they first took over no investment at all. They knew the state of the steel industry when they took over scunthorpe. Left it in a far worse state.

[@jonb3311]

About as clear as mud. No attempt to explain the process for us who have no clue.

[@finesoul677]

It doesn’t matter. It’s over now😂

[@itsmegareth9663]

Seems pointless doing any of this when india alone have probably negated all our net zero ambitions with there increase in the use of coal. We've sold the industrial sole of this country for clean energy and it won't make a bit of difference to global emissions.

[@soumyaroop123]

From Jamshedpur, birth place of Tata Steel

[@richardv9648]

This is a good move towards net zero carbon. More industries needs to be de-carbonised in the UK.

[@finesoul677]

Whatever we do here in little British to go ‘net zero’ would be like turning up to an earthquake with a dustpan and brush. I take it you’ve never been to the U.S, Russia, India, Brazil, China, Central Asia etc?.