Cornelius Louwrens, SSI UK’s chief operating officer, said: “It is with great regret that we have had to make this announcement and we are deeply aware of the concern it will give to our employees and their families”.
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A “Save Redcar Steel” Facebook page has been set up following the “devastating” news that operations at SSI United Kingdom will be “paused” and the South Bank coke oven is to close earlier than planned.
tHE government and unions are understood to be trying to cobble together an eleventh-hour rescue for threatened Thai-owned Redcar steel plant as administration looms. Global overproduction remains a problem and currency fluctuations have added further pressures.
Steel unions have issued their strongest statement yet in an ongoing press conference, urging the government and SSI to take urgent action to save the Teesside steelworks. The most important thing to do is to ensure that these industrial assets are protected and preserved until steel making can resume.
The problems with the UK’s steel industry are thought to have been caused by China and its vast stockpile of steel. “Government has (the) power to take immediate steps which can alleviate pressure in the short term”, said Gareth Stace, director of industry association UK Steel. “Ministers should be bold in the interests of the steel industry, the SSI workers and the whole Teesside community”. I wiil be writing to the European Commission today to seek clarification about the UK’s application of state aid rules. Should SSI fail then it’s taxpayers who could pick up the costs of redundancies and cleaning up the site.
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Specifically, the steelmakers want the government to bring forward plans to compensate them for carbon permit costs and are also calling for lower business rates, which they say can be five to ten times higher than in the EU. Clean up costs could run to hundreds of millions of pounds.
