Teesside, a unit of UK?s Corus, will finally begin mothballing on Friday, marking the end of 150 years of steelmaking at the plant. Though there are still talks that there may be hope for Teesside, there is sadness and anger among the employees.
The announcement that the blast furnace is to be mothballed will mean that steel making at Teesside will stop for the longest period in its history. The mothballing of the Redcar blast furnace, the largest in Europe, is a long and technical process. Though the furnace can be re-activated in the future, at present that future is far from certain.
The management has indicated that operating a 3 million tonne per year merchant slab plant is not sustainable without a long-term strategic partner.
Kirby Adams, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe had recently said, ?If the situation improves in future, the Teesside plant may be un-mothballed.? The situation is serious. Not only will 1,600 workers be jobless but there are estimates that up to 8,000 more jobs could be lost at surrounding units. The industry has employed tens of thousands of Teessiders over the decades. The shutting down of TCP?s blast furnace will start on Friday, followed by the blow down process to use up the remaining raw materials. According to reports, on Saturday, holes will be drilled in the furnace to take out residual metal?a procedure known as ?tapping the salamander?. Work to preserve the machinery will then begin in the hope that it can be restarted in future.
Experts believe mothballing the Teesside plant is a step in the right direction for the sustainability of Corus? operations. Unions, however, had called the mothballing premature.
Iron working has a long history in Redcar extending back to Roman times. Paul Delplanque, in his article in gazettelive said, ?The steel from Teesside has almost literally circled the globe with bridges in Australia and Canada, railways stretching across the dusty scorched plains of India and crossing the hot savannahs of Africa. The once great and mighty British Empire was built on a foundation of Teesside steel, which created the railways and ships that connected together the greatest empire the world has seen.?
The steel industry on Teesside played a heroic part in the Second World War, providing steel, which protected the British shores from Nazi invasion. Unfolding the 150-year-old history of Teesside, Paul, in his article, reveals that the first iron works was opened in 1841. By 1855, there were 30 blast furnaces along the banks of the Tees which went up to 100 by 1875.
The first integrated steel works on Teesside were opened in 1902 at Cargo Fleet and the massive steel works at Redcar were opened in 1917 to feed the war industries during the height of the Great War. ?From this point, steel making on Teesside became internationally famous, especially when seven years later they won the contract to build Sydney Harbour Bridge,? said Paul. In the 1950s the Redcar site had two blast furnaces each capable of producing 500 tonne of liquid iron per day. The Redcar sinter plant, coke ovens and pellet plant were opened in 1978 and a year later Europe?s biggest blast furnace began operations at Redcar. By 1993, when it was necessary to close the two small blast furnaces at the Cleveland iron plant, the Redcar blast furnace became the only one in the North of England. In November 1995, the furnace surpassed the 30 million tonne-mark, nine months ahead of the planned schedule. It was decided its condition was good enough to operate into the 21st century.
On June 18 1997, the total amount of iron produced by the Redcar iron making site reached 50 million tonne, making Redcar one of the largest iron making areas in the world. British Steel plc operated as a public company until it was merged with the Dutch steel manufacturer Hoogovens, to form Corus in 1999. Corus itself was taken over in 2007 by Tata and in 2010. the possibility of the steel industry disappearing forever is looming.
TCP has been at risk since international buyers pulled out of a 10-year contract. However, according to international media reports, unions said the site was still viable and they would not give up hope that a buyer for the plant could be found.
