Steel News 2024

6 December 2024: Now is the once-in-a-generation opportunity for UK steel. “Let’s look at this as the moment we can say ‘this is the time we got it right’” – this was the message the Rt Hon. Jonathan Reynolds delivered to the UK Steel Parliamentary Summit on Monday.

26 November 2024: As the largest buyer of steel in the UK, the Government has a unique opportunity to support the domestic steel sector. However, the latest data reveals that one third of the steel it procures is imported, costing UK taxpayers £1.5 billion annually rather than supporting UK steel producers. Over the next decade, government steel requirements will exceed £4.3 billion without even accounting for major initiatives such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen infrastructure, nuclear energy, and offshore wind.

7 October 2024: A group of trade associations, businesses, and union from heavy-end electricity users to the renewable energy developers have written to Secretaries of State Ed Miliband and Jonathan Reynolds raising concerns over electricity market reforms, specifically the proposed zonal pricing model.

7 October 2024: A new report published by UK Steel says that excess steel capacity worldwide, built due to non-market forces such as state subsidies, could easily cancel out the UK Government’s steel investments if not taken seriously and tackled with new bold trade policies.

27 September 2024: This is a huge win for UK Steel, which has advocated that all carbon leakage policies should be aligned and strongly urged the Government to ensure that any changes to UK ETS and free allocations only happen in parallel with the introduction of the UK CBAM.

16 September 2024: The Prime Minister confirmed in a statement today that Marcegaglia Stainless will be investing £50 million to build a new Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) to upgrade its existing site in Sheffield. The new ‘state of the art’ EAF will increase annual plant productivity to over 500,000 tonnes of stainless steel products, bringing efficiency and environmental improvements, and creating 50 new jobs.

11 September 2024: Tata Steel and the UK Government has formally signed a grant funding agreement worth £500m, allowing Tata Steel to proceed with its plans to install a state-of-the-art Electric Arc Furnace at its Port Talbot steelworks in Wales. This signifies the biggest investment in the UK’s modern steel sector, as Tata Steel is inputting another £750m.

2nd Sept 24: UK Steel's new report on industrial electricity prices, featured in The Times, demonstrates that a sizable gap remains between what UK steelmakers and their European competitors pay. The report also sets out three recommendations to bring electricity prices in line with European counterparts.

9 July 2024: The Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, alongside Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband, have today announced the new National Wealth Fund. The plans will align key institutions that will boost growth and unlock investment.

4 July 2024: New UK Steel analysis, featured in The Guardian, shows that over the past three months, the UK’s electricity wholesale price is more than double the cost of French and Spanish electricity. The data shows an alarming new trend in industrial electricity costs, and it is critical that the next government resolves the problem regardless of the outcome of the General Election.

26 June 2024: The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Kemi Badenoch, has given the go ahead to extend the UK’s steel safeguards for all 15 product categories until June 2026. The trade remedy tool can only be applied until June 2026 according to World Trade Organisation rules. With global steelmaking capacity only on the rise, the problems faced by the steel sector will not go away any time soon and UK Steel is now working on new models for future remedies.

24 June 2024: New analysis by UK Steel, featured in The Times, has found that current government infrastructure projects may spend over £1.5 billion on steel bought from abroad. Over the next decade, existing government figures show a steel order book spend worth an estimated £4.3 billion. However, the latest data confirms that only 66% of this steel is purchased from UK steelmakers.