Robin Burn argues that commercial steel is still
viable in Wales
In a recent article, The Llanelli Herald, published November
11th, Assembly Member for Llanelli, Lee Waters, analyses the
prospects for the steel industry in South Wales. The thrust of his argument
discusses the role of the Government in Wales and the United Kingdom, and how
Governments can influence policy decisions of the steel making industry in
respect of support interventions. Similar comments were voiced by the Member of
Parliament for Llanelli, Nia Griffith published in the Llanelli Star Wednesday
14th December issue.
As the Assembly Member contemplates the role of Government
from a political viewpoint, more importantly the actions of the steel making
companies themselves , in safeguarding their own futures, play an equal part.
History tells us Government intervention, however well
intentioned, has never been the solution to industrial strategy, and long term
survival, as Governments’ change their intervention strategy, depending on the
nature of the political decision making, of the party in power.
The steel industry in the United Kingdom has been serving the
economic welfare of the United Kingdom and its industrial base, longer than
some political parties have been in existence. Its ability to change, meeting
the demands of the engineering sector, has been the basis of its survival
strategy.
The argument, proffered by the Assembly Member for Llanelli,
Lee Waters, government intervention as a sole solution is misguided in as much
as, it ignores the role played by the steel industry itself , by its engineers
and scientists, developing the techniques and industrial practise to ensure its
long term survival. Government has a role to play in ensuring the industry has
a stable platform on which it can develop to survive, not give it an artificial
prop as a short term solution. Government
with its policy may not always be favoured by future regimes.
The engineering industry in the United Kingdom, is one of the
provision of products of increasing
sophistication, to meet the needs of advanced technology, of high integrity
engineering. The United Kingdom is in the forefront of increasingly advanced
engineering, in aerospace, defence and power generation, all of which have the
requirement of advanced, special high specification steel, it all of its producable forms both cast and wrought.
The need for mass produced, high volume wrought long product
of a reduced quality, and by nature lower value, has to be scaled back as no
longer viable, replaced by the higher specification steels required by the
advanced engineering industries.
The steel making industry is a global one, according to a
report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
the worlds installed steelmaking capacity, is projected to increase to2.36
billion tons by 2017. One third more steel than the world actually needs.
It was argued in an earlier discussion document,(A
different Nuclear Solution; People First website,www.peoplefirstwales.org.uk
; 6th August 2016) that the replacement nuclear power station at
Hinkley Point could be a solution provided by the building in the United
Kingdom utilising existing technology used in building small nuclear generators
used in nuclear submarines. The special steel cast and wrought steel product
used in the building of such nuclear reactors exist made in United Kingdom
steel production plants.
The home based steel production plants can, and are being
contemplated in, replacing their production techniques and equipment to make
the very high steel product required for
advanced engineering needs.
On October,13th , the annual event Bessemer Day,
held jointly by IOM3 and the Iron and Steel Society, was held in collaboration
with the South Wales Materials Association (SWMA), at the new Bay Campus at
Swansea University.
The culmination of the day was the presentation by Professor
Alan Cramb, President of thee Illinois Institute of Technology, winner of the
2016 Bessemer Gold Medal, of the Bessemer Lecture.
Cramb, born in Scotland, studied metallurgy in Scotland, has
worked for many years in the American Steel Industry, and a worldwide teacher
of steel technology in steel plants.
His presentation, Steel Processing Technology: Potential
Futures, a review now published in Materials World Vol.24 No.12 December
2016, reviewed steels past, then looked forward to the future posing the
question- what is the future for steel processing?
His progressive thinking suggested, the capability to produce
liquid cast iron in volumes less than 500,000 tonnes per year, to carbon-less
low temperature reduction of iron oxide to controlled size iron powder for 3D laser splintering to
form steel products.
Cramb made three future suggestions for the steel Industry,
some options already being practised in other dominant steel making countries.
Firstly, the use of recycled steel scrap, electric arc
furnace re-melting is the preferred industry route. In America, 65% of steel
tonnage comes from scrap metal.
As an example of steel
making practise being contemplated to improve efficiency, one steel making
plant in South Wales, is replacing its steel melting practise, to the use of
re-melting graded scrap in electric furnaces.
However, continuous recycling practise has a detrimental
effect on the quality of the end product due to build up impurities of copper
and tin, both of which are responsible for reduction in quality, in terms of
mechanical properties.
Current practise is to blend; with blast furnace produced pig
iron free from copper and tin to offset the reduction of quality. The news of
the retention of the two blast furnaces in Port Talbot is welcomed to supply
impurity free iron product to steel melting practise.
Other countries’ steel making plants are utilising municipal
waste , to convert into energy, for their internal needs, as a cost reducing
measure, which eases the burden on the Local Authority’s for its waste disposal
management. The announced building of an electricity generating power station
in a TATA plant in South Wales possibly fuelled by recycled biomass and other
municipal wastes would be following established practise.
 |
| Robin Burn at Tata Steel. Llanelli |
The engineers and scientists employed in the steel industry,
via their various Chartered Institutions of Engineering, Metal and Material
production, are working together collectively; to provide the engineering and
scientific solutions needs of today’s high quality engineering.
Seminars and conferences pertaining to developments in steel
making practise are planned.
Since the development and utilisation of the converter by Sir
Henry Bessemer in 1856,to the use of strip casting of carbon steels in 2000,
the industry itself has progressed continuously with production innovation , as
well as development of new steel types, most notably the development of
stainless steel alloys by Brearley, and Krupp in 1914.
Robin Burn I Eng. FIMMM
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