The ships crucial to saving Britain’s steel industry

After stepping in to take control of Britain’s steel industry over the weekend, ministers are now racing to secure the raw materials needed to keep it going.

The scramble has become bound up with the passage of two ships carrying fuel for the country’s last remaining blast furnaces in Scunthorpe: Amstel Tiger and Navios Alegria. Without the safe arrival of their cargo, the Lincolnshire plant could fall silent.

The vessels are understood to be laden with almost 100,000 tonnes of coking coal ordered by British Steel to feed Scunthorpe’s furnaces, which once extinguished are almost impossible to restart.

Securing that cargo became a national priority after it emerged that the company’s Chinese owner, Jingye, had tried to sell it on in a bid to close down the Scunthorpe site.

It led to suggestions that the Royal Navy might even be drafted in to escort the bulk carriers into the Port of Immingham, 20 miles east of the steelworks.

Steelworkers, union chiefs and politicians were left to track the passage of the otherwise unremarkable ships on specialist websites, eager to know if they were headed for the UK or turning away.

As of Monday afternoon, the Amstel Tiger was sitting about 20 miles off the mouth of the Humber, according to the Marine Traffic website.

The vessel was shown as bound for Immingham from the US and listed as having arrived last Thursday. Rather than enter the port and unload, however, it appears to have remained offshore, holding its position for several days.

The Navios Alegria, which set off for Immingham from Australia last month, was shown to be off the coast of Senegal, West Africa, and not due to make landfall until Thursday.

Ian Linklater, the convener for Scunthorpe at the Community steel union, said he understood that the Amstel Tiger was carrying about 40,000 tonnes of coke and had earlier been turned away by Jingye.

He said the Navios Alegria was believed to be laden with 55,000 tonnes but that the Chinese firm may have sought to sell the cargo to a third party as part of its closure plan for Scunthorpe, which has been suffering losses of £700,000 a day. On Monday the Government said a dispute over the cargo had been resolved and it had been paid for out of public funds.

The coking coal loaded aboard the two vessels will cost the Government around $20m (£15m) based on the average price this year of about $200 per tonne.

Mr Linklater said a third vessel carrying iron ore pellets had already unloaded in Immingham but that Jingye had been prepared to pay for only half the shipment, leaving the other half on the dockside at the port. He added that talks were under way to secure the remainder of the consignment for British Steel.

Bill Penn, a steel industry consultant, told BBC radio earlier that drone footage also showed a stockpile of coking coal on the harbour side at Immingham.

Should British Steel gain access to all of the shipments concerned it would be able to resume normal production, with raw material deliveries following as usual every two weeks or so, Mr Linklater said.

The union official said that Tata Steel, owner of the Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales that shut down its blast furnaces last year, is understood to have offered to supply emergency raw materials from its IJmuiden plant in the Netherlands.

British Steel had already bought any unused supplies at Port Talbot. Scunthorpe was itself able to make its own coking coal until 2023, when Jingye ended production.

A spokesman for No 10 said that shipments of iron pellets and coking coal were now at or near Immingham’s bulk terminal, with a second coke shipment on its way, and that the Government was confident it would be able to keep Scunthorpe’s blast furnaces running. The Government has confirmed that unloading of raw materials would begin on Tuesday, with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds expected to visit the port.

Operational teams were still assessing whether Jingye’s plan to idle one of the furnaces this week to keep the other running until next month could be avoided with the raw material deliveries imminent.

British Steel separately announced the appointment of 14-year company veteran Allan Bell as chief executive, replacing Jingye appointee Zengwei An.

Mr Linklater said Mr Bell had played a key role in maintaining communication with the Government over recent months as relations with Jingye deteriorated.