Redcar's Corus plant

[weltweit]

The government spent billions to rescue the banks.
Should it not spend something to rescue the Corus Redcar Blast Furnace?

oh a current link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8523382.stm

 

[trevhagl]

The government spent billions to rescue the banks.
Should it not spend something to rescue the Corus Redcar Blast Furnace?

oh a current link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8523382.stm

this was discussed on Question Time last night , it had that mad bitch Ruth Lea pretending to be concerned till Dimbelby asked if she would actually bail it out if she was in power then it was er er er fuck em....

It's a disgrace and good to see some angry locals raising hell at the two faced tossers from all parties

 

[weltweit]

It is a big local employer. Mothballing may not result in a plant that can be started again, so it is really closure that they are talking about.

 

[coal-face]

The government spent billions to rescue the banks.
Should it not spend something to rescue the Corus Redcar Blast Furnace?

oh a current link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/8523382.stm

If the banks weren't rescued we were told that the whole economy would go into meltdown. Not sure if that's true, but the point is that if Corus isn't rescued the whole economy certainly won't go into meltdown. So comparing banks to Corus is not comparing like with like.

Having said that, I certainly think that Corus should be rescued because the long-term dole bill would probably be higher. More importantly, the devastating effect of unemployment on people's lives is far more serious than short-term subsidy.

 

[coal-face]

this was discussed on Question Time last night , it had that mad bitch Ruth Lea pretending to be concerned till Dimbelby asked if she would actually bail it out if she was in power then it was er er er fuck em....

It's a disgrace and good to see some angry locals raising hell at the two faced tossers from all parties

Agreed. I saw the programme too, and recall one of the audience saying that order books could be full with the right marketing, because the quality of steel produced there was extremely high.

 

[weltweit]

Thing is, if the order books could be full, why are they not?

 

[weltweit]

I was listenning to something today and it said that there used to be hundreds of blast furnaces in that part of the country. What caused the rest of them to shut? are we looking at inevitability here?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Thing is, if the order books could be full, why are they not?

Comparative steel production costs and the fact that Mittal and his ilk have been eating into Corus's specialist steels market for a few years now.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I was listenning to something today and it said that there used to be hundreds of blast furnaces in that part of the country. What caused the rest of them to shut? are we looking at inevitability here?

many steelworks were victims of rationalisation after nationalisation, and then the whole problem of cheap far eastern steel production gained speed. British Steel fought back by concentrating on high quality and specialist product, but they then got saddled with the additional burden of making themselves "market-ready" for privatisation, got privatised, and having been gradually eroded away into insignificance since.

 

[weltweit]

Comparative steel production costs and the fact that Mittal and his ilk have been eating into Corus's specialist steels market for a few years now.

So they couldn't be full... because of what you just said...

On Question time a Union guy spoke from the audience and said that he could pick up the phone and get orders for Corus Redcar ... to which some on the panel said "why don't you then!" ....

 

[ViolentPanda]

So they couldn't be full... because of what you just said...

On Question time a Union guy spoke from the audience and said that he could pick up the phone and get orders for Corus Redcar ... to which some on the panel said "why don't you then!" ....

What you need to bear in mind is that you can have a full order book now, but you need to know that you've also got further production contracts in the pipeline, otherwise the parent company is just going to shift production to somewhere with spare capacity, because it's cheaper to run a blast furnace at full tilt than to bollix around at low capacity. You're using the same amount of energy as running full-out, for far less output.
This, of course, is the ultimate problem of monopolised (to all intents and purposes) production: Big infrastructure that's great when in full production, but fuck-all good for anything else. Amazing to think that a 100 years ago, we had hundreds of specialist steel producers just in Sheffield alone.

 

[weltweit]

Well I don't know as much about the economics as I would like, I am sure that labour costs here are much higher in UK than they are in India. But what proportion of a lump of steel is labour cost? I have no idea.

Then there is transport costs, could a more expensive piece of steel from Britain still cost more at the UK factory gate (UK car industry et al) than an indian ingot transported all the way from India?

 

[sihhi]

Don't fight this with economics - fight it with practical sense - attack the logic of private ownership and private investment decisions.

There's a massive slump and yet the social need remains - energy power stations renovation of bus garages, flood defence systems at breaking point, grandstands, bridges, steel for blades in the Vestas plant which could have been kept open etc etc.

 

[where to]

Don't fight this with economics - fight it with practical sense - attack the logic of private ownership and private investment decisions.

There's a massive slump and yet the social need remains - energy power stations renovation of bus garages, flood defence systems at breaking point, grandstands, bridges, steel for blades in the Vestas plant which could have been kept open etc etc.

spot on.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well I don't know as much about the economics as I would like, I am sure that labour costs here are much higher in UK than they are in India. But what proportion of a lump of steel is labour cost? I have no idea.

Then there is transport costs, could a more expensive piece of steel from Britain still cost more at the UK factory gate (UK car industry et al) than an indian ingot transported all the way from India?

Steel isn't a homogeneous product. I'm not up on the Indian steel industry, but they didn't, in the 90s, have the capacity to produce anything much more complex than chrome/vanadium alloy, certainly not the sort of high-temperature, controlled environment steels used for specialist products.

 

[treelover]

Don't fight this with economics - fight it with practical sense - attack the logic of private ownership and private investment decisions.

There's a massive slump and yet the social need remains - energy power stations renovation of bus garages, flood defence systems at breaking point, grandstands, bridges, steel for blades in the Vestas plant which could have been kept open etc etc.
Reply With Quote

Absolutely, this is sort of what Obama has done in the US, but also massive infrastructure projects, and in the teeth of much opposition. If we had a effective left if could highlight how plants like these are shutting down while the bankers got billions

 

[ViolentPanda]

Absolutely, this is sort of what Obama has done in the US, but also massive infrastructure projects, and in the teeth of much opposition. If we had a effective left if could highlight how plants like these are shutting down while the bankers got billions

The problem with what Obama is doing, is that while a lot of worthwhile work might get done, it still puts dollars in the pockets of private companies such as US Steel, just as over here we'd be lining the pockets of Corus, and you can bet that top whack would be charged too!

 

[story]

Just heard from a pal who works in construction that the steel workers are talking about striking in response to this situation.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just heard from a pal who works in construction that the steel workers are talking about striking in response to this situation.

I'm not surprised.

YOu just know how a strike will be played by the media though, don't you?

 

[story]

I'm not surprised.

YOu just know how a strike will be played by the media though, don't you?

Yep. Especially with all the cranes currently busy in London Town and elsewhere.

 

[story]

Going by what my pal was saying, the steel workers feel that they currently have plenty of support in the industry, and they're likely right.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Thing is, if the order books could be full, why are they not?

Because we're in the middle of a massive slump.

 

[story]

Because we're in the middle of a massive slump.

Construction looks pretty busy despite the slump, and I hear that the papers are drawn up for masses more development all over the place. Guys in the know are buying properties to sell on when the cranes move in.

So I hear, anyway.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Construction looks pretty busy despite the slump, and I hear that the papers are drawn up for masses more development all over the place. Guys in the know are buying properties to sell on when the cranes move in.

That's not what I hear at all, there's a massive slump in building.

 

[weltweit]

How much of UK demand for steel is produced in the UK I wonder?

 

[weltweit]

Steel isn't a homogeneous product. I'm not up on the Indian steel industry, but they didn't, in the 90s, have the capacity to produce anything much more complex than chrome/vanadium alloy, certainly not the sort of high-temperature, controlled environment steels used for specialist products.

I don't really buy this, it may have been true at the start but now to suggest that we make higher quality because we are British and they are Indian just does not make such sense. I am sure given the same equipment, the same manning and suchlike, Indian plants can produce what we produce.

 

[Dr Jon]

I think this is part of a trend that has been going on for some years. I remember talking with a colleague back in the late 1980's, who'd just come back from a job in Korea: he was absolutely gob-smacked at the scale and integration of developments there. Coal and iron ore would come in by ship (from Australia?) and then be processed in any of the six or so blast furnaces, rolling mills, pressing plants and what have you. Further down were the factories using that freshly made steel to produce cars, domestic appliances and what have you. These finished products would leave from another port, just round the corner from where the coal and iron ore arrived a few days earlier. This guy was from South Wales (where coal and steel were still the main employers) and he was very gloomy about what this would mean for his family & friends there. There's not much you can do to compete with an integrated production set-up on such a massive scale, except possibly to specialise in high quality/precision or niche steel products.

The Indians are very rapidly catching up with the rest of the world in both steel-making and manufacturing. They have bought the expertise and technology they need in Corus, Tata-Land-Rover etc. I'm pretty certain that the new owners of our "strategic" industries have no interest in providing employment for their old colonial masters. They want specific technology, maybe some specialist plant and that's about it, I reckon.

Now that world demand is shrinking and profits are getting squeezed, they're going to shut up shop here and move back home. Other companies like Sony Ericsson have done that already.

Sadly, I don't reckon that politicians see manufacturing as important, not since the Tories started de-industrialising and selling off the family silver in the 1980's. Once skills and leading edge technologies are lost, it's almost impossible to develop them from scratch. Which is why the Indians have bought ours.

As usual, our politicians have been ignorant and negligent, probably to the point of treachery, in selling off our national assets and strategic industries to competitor nations.

Another reason why the world should be run by engineers. Things might not be pretty or popular, but at least they'd fucking work.

 

[weltweit]

... Sadly, I don't reckon that politicians see manufacturing as important, not since the Tories started de-industrialising and selling off the family silver in the 1980's. Once skills and leading edge technologies are lost, it's almost impossible to develop them from scratch. Which is why the Indians have bought ours.

I see manufacturing as important.

I think the same amount of British employees should be employed in manufacturing as they are in Germany.

Germany has not given up on manufacturing. But they have a different way of financing industry to the UK.

As usual, our politicians have been ignorant and negligent, probably to the point of treachery, in selling off our national assets and strategic industries to competitor nations.

Another reason why the world should be run by engineers. Things might not be pretty or popular, but at least they'd fucking work.

I am not totally blaming politicians.

I once worked for a company where there was an engineer as managing director. The trouble was he thought he was still an engineer not a managing director. Companies should be run by managing directors!

 

[Dr Jon]

...
The trouble was he thought he was still an engineer not a managing director.

I've also worked for a few companies run by engineers. The only problems arose when they had to deal with small-minded, pen-pushing, money-juggling twats.
Like bankers and vulture crapitalists...

 

[weltweit]

If you are a managing director, the finance of the company has to be a pretty vital part of your role.

Not saying MDs can't be engineers, or have been engineers.