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After previously being sold off by the Conservative government (Boris) in 2020 to the current Chinese owner, Jingye.
Jingye reportedly paid £50m,
however...
The current owners may have also been deliberately kneecapping the plant, citing not being able to get high enough grade coke. Which resulted in the above quote.
I wonder if this may give our own some ideas regarding certain resource extraction and production industries over here.
The times they are a-changin'.
A non-paywalled article...
Very 70s Callaghan Labour Government of them. I have no doubt that the results will be similar
en.wikipedia.org
British Steel is on track to be fully nationalised within weeks, the Guardian understands, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner.
The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, was
taken under government control last April amid fears that the owner Jingye was planning to shut down the site.
British Steel
operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK but it is still economically controlled by the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020.
Ministers moved to
designate the steel industry as vital to national security last week, which could clear the way for a nationalisation on those grounds, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
They are understood to have offered £100m to Jingye for British Steel earlier this month but were rebuffed. The Chinese company had originally demanded more than £1bn.
Alternatively, the government could simply set Jingye a deadline for a deal to be done, the source added. Whichever route they go down, ministers plan to take economic control of British Steel from Jingye in the coming weeks, the person added.
Shutting the plant would have ended Britain’s “primary” steel-making ability because blast furnaces allow the metal to be made from scratch, rather than relying on scrap.
But by the end of January this year the cost of keeping British Steel running
had ballooned to £377m, and could exceed £1.5bn by 2028 if it continues at its current rate, the National Audit Office said earlier this month.
UK plans to take economic control from Chinese owner Jingye a year after stepping in to run plant, sources say
www.theguardian.com
