@@jamesdavis5096 Can you please elaborate more on what this "New Steel Making Process" is or what it looks like?? Are there any "new" Steel Mills that give examples of this?? Thanks!!
The really sad thing is that people who worked together from being a 16 year old boy to a 50+ man hardly if ever see each other now .At reunions I have seen a few former great mates who have only seen each other a couple of times since the final closure in 2015 until now in 2022 having most of their contact if any through facebook . Very few of the friendships now survive in the same way as when they worked together .. Time marches on 😊
Just to let you know the blast furnace is being blown in 2 weeks mark...I've worked on various stages of its demolition ....must be very sad for the people of teeside.
True that about when you leave a long term career. Friends for years while working together but in a lot of cases people don’t keep in touch. Their home life is unconnected to their work life, most keep it separate. I wouldn’t invite workmates to my house.
Personally had a great respect for John Bolton . Worked his way up from young engineer at Bessemer to sadly Redcars demise .and the flack that went with it .
Tony Blair was responsible, he would not authorise a loan of 60 million quid to tide the Steelworks over yet he agreed to give 20 million quid to train Steelworkers to do menial work such as stacking Supermarket Shelves. If Blair ever showed his face in Redcar he would get torn to pieces !
Blair was no fool ! A despicable man but he knew it was inefficient and ultimately finished! I feel sorry for all the genuine folk affected by this closure --but the BSC management with their pure arrogance- Quote: -'The world will beat a path to the doors of BSC' Poobah!
@@jasenwright1178 It wasn’t inefficient. Mrs Thatcher’s removal of capital controls meant capital could relocate to wherever wages were lower. The same happened in the USA. It is called ‘liberalisation’. The writing has been on the wall for British steel making since 1979.
Corus are doing the same to Port Talbot, shut down the blast furnaces and build an Arc furnace, The mills will be kept going from slabs brought in from India.
Curiously, the U.S. Steel Works in Granite City, Illinois (U.S.A.) is shutting down its steel making basic oxygen furnaces in the coming year or two (2023-34) but maintaining the two blast furnaces there to produce "pig iron" for other U.S. Steel mills that use electric arc furnaces.
14 years of happy retirement now from being 51 in 2010, when i keft after enduring 35 years there. Getting my full state pension early next year, after buying missing nic years to nullify being opted out completely. Quids in ! Is the energy dept services manager still working there ?
So sad. Been there. A helpless feeling indeed. One thing to watch others go through it. It really hits home if one has been through it. Nothing personal. It's mostly about stockholder value. Enough said.
Very sad I started in the iron & steel when I was fifteen years old as a lab boy i remember lacenby boss plant starting Remember Redcar starting from the coal handling raw materials ore terminal the biggest ore carrier Oway Maru Our own ships lacenby Scunthorpe ravescraig British Steel Corporation as it was fantastic When I started was skinningrove iron and steel
Poor design of main blast furnace--'far too big' most expensive coals to be used, most expensive raw materials / ores needed. The white elephant! Cost of Teesside Steel is 8 times more expensive than Japanese , Korean steel. 12 times more than Chinese steel--that is the delivered cost including shipping!! BSC to blame for their arrogance!! Wrong product for the wrong markets!
@californiadreamin8423 no but the blast furnace was to big it killed of the three blast furnaces down in south bank because they became un economical to run either the whole site was a mess lead up to the 2015 closure because you has a coke over near enough 4 miles from the main blast furnace then you had one next to the furnace the bos plant was more than 3 miles away from the furnace who ever at BSC did not have the fore site of how to design a plant built for speed and efficiency