Should the government do more to help the steel industry or....

OldCoals said:
How is the Port Talbot plant losing £1m per day?
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The place I work for just sent two sparkies, from the midlands, all the way to south wales, to change a twin socket outlet in a staff kitchen and to remove some old cable at the port talbot steelworks.
Two blokes, and their travel billing, for the whole day as they had to have a site induction (despite cscs etc for all of the other places they work), then they weren't allowed to access the distribution board to turn off the power as only the on-site electricians can do that...

Why we were paid to go all that way to replace a tsso and remove some cable, instead of the on-site guys doing it...? More than their jobs worth? Not my responsibility?
Utterly bonkers if you ask me.
If overspend for replacing a plug socket is carried over into the rest of their operation it wouldn't surprise me if they're wasting a ****load of cash every day.
 
Save the industry. We can't rely 100% on a services based industry. Were no lessons learnt from 2008?

A strong mix of Britain producing products and services will give us defense in depth.
 
agnes said:
Not read through the thread, but it's a dead industry. Why are we trying to save something that makes no profit?

Move on.
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It makes no profit because the Chinese are dumping their over stock on European markets, driving the price of our steel down.

Remove this issue like the USA by introducing a tariff on Chinese steel and then watch the British steel industry prosper.
 
Ricochet J said:
Remove this issue like the USA by introducing a tariff on Chinese steel and then watch the British steel industry prosper.
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That does not remove the issue, the cost of running will still be high.

The issue is the outdated, expensive manufacturing process.

Let the ship sink or sell it to a company willing to invest to modernise it and subsidise the modernisation.
 
Abraxaz1 said:
The problem is making steel is not energy efficient, the amount of energy is converting iron to steel is rediculas, looking at around 3-15000cm3 per blow. Depending on carbon content.
We already harness the excess heat which is turned into steam and powers steam turbines.
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It sounds like you know what you are talking about but what on earth does that mean "150m3" of what, Energon cubes? How much energy does it take to "blow air"

Doesn't recycling glass and most common metal cost a crap ton more in electric than in what it actually costs to produce a new "ingot" from scratch ?
 
I'm not sure how this is so high up the agenda or why there are talks of saving a "critical" industry as that muppet Corbyn puts it when it makes up 1% of UK manufacturing output and 0.1% of our GDP. Yes it's horrible for those involved but this situation really needs some perspective.
 
The country had been bankrupted by service industry, we need to start earning a living. This is not easy and requires hard work and more than anything good management and investment.

Good luck with that with the current shower of elected representatives we have...
 
Dis86 said:
Quite a decent sized one. Not entirely sure why size of house is relevant.
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Of course it is, it ia the only thing that is relevant, provision of shelter is the first obligation of society.

Do you think everyone dreams of driving around in a new Audi?

Actually now you mention it they are quite cheap in PT, still if you're unemployed that won't help much.

Anyway 30k seems about right to me I wouldn't like to work in steel works
 
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Slam62 said:
What size house could you buy on 30k? Even in PT
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:confused:

Put it this way, in 2007 Creda/Hotpoint assembly workers were on around £18,000 which was considered an excellent wage but the Italian bosses said they would have to work for £2/hour to make the factory profitable.
Port Talbot looks way worse than that.

My eldest is on just above minimum wage and has just been given a £147,000 mortgage.
I really don't get what a house has got to do with it.
 
Why can't they just hire Chinese immigrants to run it 8)

Also China has literally just slapped dust in the face with their own tariff, so funny.
 
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