TATA STEEL DOOMED

tories taking over

conservatism finished

Reports claiming up for sale for £1

Time for workers and unions to buy the company then they can manage it & set pay & conditions for workers.
The Unions are pretty vocal when explaining how a complete should be managed - now is their chance to prove they know what they are talking about.

The ironic thing is that the Tories will end up Nationalising it to save their face. The UK was once a proud industrial nation until Thatcher decimated it.

A pound?

I'll have two.

Loses a million a day.
Save your pound.

All sounds a bit fishy according to a Tata source.

The UK was once a proud industrial nation until Thatcher decimated it.

The rot set in when we joined the Iron & Steel Community, it has been downhill ever since. The governments of the day have merely been mouthpieces for an organisation that deemed Europe had over capacity and offered grants to reduce capacity.

The Tories are systematically destroying this country.

NHS
Education
Industries
etc.etc.etc........

I get a bit annoyed keep hearing how British steel is so brilliant

oops not finished

as someone who worked in heavy engineering all his life, the quality of British steel has been deteriorating for 30 years. Swedish steel is far and away the best quality, ours isn't much better than the stuff Italy was pumping out in the 70's.

bit like the leggy blondes

Its the EU that destroyed British steel.

One pleasing side affect is Port Talbot is in Stephen Kinnocks constituency.
Another is Rotherham will lose some jobs.
That may seem harsh on Rotherham but this is the town who was run by Labour during the systematic rape of a minimum of 1400 girls,who turned a blind eye for the sake of " social cohesion " and yet the people of Rotherham kept voting Labour,vile town.

The real reason the jobs are lost in because a mixture of capitalism and Unions.

Unions constantly demand wage increases. Management have a job to maintain a low cost base. Eventually it reaches a tipping point and they head for somewhere far cheaper China/India etc...

Manufacturing/processing jobs by there nature go to poor countries where costs are lowest

Nothing wrong with it. Its just an economic path all manufacturing companies must go

Blaming the Unions for failure of industry in the uk is laughable.

China been subsidising loss making home steel industry for years

I remember when the Rover Group was sold for £10 to Phoenix Venture Holdings (PVH).

''Following BMW's break-up of the Rover Group a financially complex deal involving a £500 million "dowry payment" from BMW, resulted in PVH purchasing the Rover marque in May 2000 for the notional sum of £10, relaunching the car company as MG Rover.''

The directors then set about feathering their own nests from the setup. And five years later closed the place.

Later it was revealed that the five executives involved took £42m in pay and pensions from the troubled firm before it collapsed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Venture_Holdings

I should think they'll be queuing up to buy the steel company if they can get the government involved in the deal again.

A proportion of what would now be TATA's stake in Rotherham steel was the result of the amalgamation of many smaller companies in and around the Sheffield area that became British Steel (from recollection in the 60's)
Many of those companies specialised in metallurgy and steel production and were known to produce superior steels to the humdrum carbon steel thats churned out in many areas.

That specialisation still is apparent but on a far reduced scale as everyone caught up and or requirements dropped.

In the steel industry of the area the asset strippers made off with much of the value as the companies slowly vanished under Thatcher.

The bottom line is that steel will always be required, but times change.
You dont see too many Iron Works anymore.

If you grow by acquisition don't get into a bidding war...got bid up £2.4bn

Corus in 2007: On 20 October 2006, Tata Steel signed a deal with Anglo-Dutch company, Corus to buy 100% stake at £4.3bn ($8.1 billion) at 455 pence per share.[21] On 19 November 2006, the Brazilian steel company Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) launched a counter offer for Corus at 475 pence per share, valuing it at £4.5 billion. On 11 December 2006, Tata preemptively upped its offer to 500 pence per share, which was within hours trumped by CSN's offer of 515 pence per share, valuing the deal at £4.9 billion. The Corus board promptly recommended both the revised offers to its shareholders. On 31 January 2007, Tata Steel won their bid for Corus after offering 608 pence per share, valuing Corus at £6.7 billion ($12 billion).

At the time of acquisition, Corus was four times larger than Tata Steel, in terms of annual steel production.Corus was the world's 9th largest producer of Steel, whereas Tata Steel was at 56th position. The acquisition made Tata Steel world's 5th largest producer of Steel.

By late 2014 Tata Group remained £13 billion in debt, which had increased following the acquisition of Corus in 2007.

Pretty obvious ironmongering tactics from Tata

Laughable to criticise Tata as there was a distinct absence of any British consortium wanting to buy British Steel when the Labour minister Pete Mandelsson said the Labour government was happy to say goodbye to metal bashing jobs.

So according to the lefties, the glut of subsidised dirt cheap steel from China driving steel makers out of business, that we can't do much about because our hands are tied due to the EU that the left wingers love so much, this is all *drum roll* (and no surprise who they blame, same as always):

Thatchers fault and the Tories!.

Is there any left winger out there with a brain? I swear, if you didn't meet them in real life you'd think they were made up. Maybe we should all be driving Trabants made under license by British Leyland?
Except I think they were made of fibreglass, and wouldn't use much steel

When is big Dave going to tell the British public that the government cant bail out industries as the EU prevents it ?

Staggering scenes. Under NO circumstances should there be a bail-out with taxpayers money. This business loses a reported ONE MILLION POUNDS a day.

Good luck to the management and workers if they are so confident they can buy the business and turn it around into a winner.

it's that good that Jaguar/Land Rover import something like 80% of the steel for their motors

Actually for national security reasons I'd say we need to keep a core set of skilled people in certain industries, I'm happy to pay some sort of subsidy to keep at least one plant ticking over.

But it's quite ironic that, again, the graudianistas like to complain about Cameron saying "lets get rid of this green crap" when the specific thing he was talking about then was the green taxes that push up UK electricity prices, with TATA paying 82% more for their electricity than German steel plants do..

take the cheap steel from china - make ball bearings with it - trillions of ball bearings and then bomb china with them all at once.

OR, when they do that thing where they all jump in the air at once, roll a few trillion ball bearings under them.

themightymac  • March 29, 2016 10:48 PM BST 
The ironic thing is that the Tories will end up Nationalising it to save their face. The UK was once a proud industrial nation until Thatcher decimated it.

No mention the militant unions of the time mac?

I see that the Scottish government are bying TA TAs Scottish plant then immediately selling it to another foreign company for the same money.
Why isn't it being bought direct? Underhand subsidy perhaps ie buying with debts then selling on debt free? Must be a reason.

I think there is a reason. not exactly sure but it is to do with the furnace.. if you let it cool it is very expensive to get it working again.

Not only expensive, acc, but letting it cool down alters the physical structure of the furnace, ie expansion/contraction of its bits and pieces.

I think that's true acc but what Aka is driving at is the wierd financial shenannigans there, rather
than going from company A to company B, it's for a short time being owned by the government.

The deal is understood to have been structured to avoid the lengthy due diligence process required for a transaction between two companies.

"The deal is understood to have been structured to avoid the lengthy due diligence process required for a transaction between two companies."
Is Fred Goodwin giving them advice on this?

That doesn't make sense though Brendan unless the SG give them guarantees when they sell it on.

Carnegie made the best steel.

if you can support farmers with CAP and tariffs on food imports, what is actual difference with steel makers, car makers? just because farmers are better organised/unionised

Time to  renationalisation our steel industry in the short to medium term.
Industries like steel production are far too important to  loss.
The Chinese, French,and Italians all directly subsidise their steel industry  why is always the British who fail to protect our core industry.
Often in the name of capitalism.
Most people accept that over regulation and over protection is not a good thing for a successful economy however is not time to also accept that too thew protection leads to the situation we are in now. Some sensible balance between the two is needed.

europeans are saying UK vetoed higher tarrifs on chinese steel imports as Cameron/Osbourne favour to the chinese and you reap what you sow

David Cameron was accused of betraying steel workers yesterday after Britain blocked an attempt to impose tougher sanctions to stop the Chinese dumping cut-price imports.

The European Commission wanted to increase the tariffs on Chinese imports to help the struggling steel industry.

But the UK government was the “ringleader” in stopping Brussels from increasing the tariffs to the same rate as the United States.

As as result the EU has only increased the import duty by just 9% on Chinese goods while the States has slapped tariffs of 66%.

Business Secretary Sajid Javid admitted he had blocked the EU from taking tougher action - even though it would have helped UK steel firms.

Hope that Indian flyover wasn't built with TATA steel then it really will be curtains.

Cameron was just on boing his manufactured political double speak; 'we are not ruling anything out'
Except natIonalisation of course.

If TATA decide to close the plants then I'm afraid that's the rump end of the lesse faire capitalist market place.
They let the market decide and if they decide to dump it then how can politics sugar coat that turd?

Quite telling today that second story on the news at 1 was the doom of the steel industry and the third story was record balance of payments deficit......anyone see a pattern forming here?

Business Secretary Sajid Javid admitted he had blocked the EU from taking tougher action - even though it would have helped UK steel firms.

That's because other UK firms are making the best of the cheap steel from abroad.

If they had to pay UK prices for steel we might see lots of them getting into a mess as well.

Cameron was just on boing his manufactured political double speak; 'we are not ruling anything out'

It's hard to see what Cameron could rule in anyway. Subsidies are out of the question with EU law.

''And taxpayer support - short of nationalisation - would almost certainly fall foul of EU state aid rules.''

BBC News.

Quite right...to a point, I suspect the could use a model similar to the banks though, but what I absolutely hate is the way cameron is attempting to say whatever he needs to placate people using the language he does.
He wants in EU so doesnt say its detriment to the position and wants the public to think they are there to help the workers....when really hes there to help enterprise who want a return on investment.

It's all a sham from Cameron and the Labour party - just pretending that they are looking for a solution when there isn't one.

There's nothing they can do short of nationalisation and that's right off the agenda.

The plant has gone.

Absolutely.
But people need to see that it was decisions already made that brought us to the place we are at.
They cant play a double bluff and pretend any gains they've already banked come with no downsides.

All they can do is nosh enterprise and hope for the best, but enterprise dont employ people for the good of the community.

Nationalise Port Talbot, sell the steel at best possible market rate to foreign countries and give the steel free to British companies.
This solves all problems.

give the steel free to British companies

you'd be lucky to get any takers

it doesn't stop them buying wind turbines off the Chinese, and the blades flying off and embedding in a nearby field, if lucky.

If the steel is poor quality, or manufacturing is poor that is something that can be addressed, assuming Britain is still capable of engineering and manufacturing.

The reason our steel industry is in the  situation it is today is not the fault of the workers management or quality of the steel. The fault lays with bad political decisions. Allowing steel made in countries that receive state subsidies, while ours have none allowing steel produced in dirty mills while ours are subject to strict environmental regulation. These are the reasons why UK produced steel is in the  situation it's in. Politicians got us the mess it's up to them to sort it out.
We have never faced a more uncertain future as what we face now are we really going to give our steel away and be at the  mercy of foreign governments?

We don`t give our steel away to foreign governments, we sell it. We give it away to our own country and our own British companies.

It is all for the best,we do not need metal bashing jobs any more and should move onto higher technology occupations.

We could hack all of the eu bank reserves and pay off our deficit that way.

Tecno future.

The chinese bailed out their steel companies to the tune of £16 billion.
Thats the difference, saturate all markets until they fold and you are the only one left.

What Id like to know is what knock on effect would a discontinued industry have on the Prime Minister's foreign sales pitch made around the world attempting to sell arms?
Surely that goes to 5hit too?

so chine have higher tarrifs on our steel than we put on theirs.
and we let them
coming toa negotiating table near you.
lots of deals to be "re negotiated" after brexit.

when you worship the free market god, when no one else does.

UK state cant own our trains, but german state can,
UK state cant own power plants but french state can

going to be carnage in any trade negotiations.

peopel using royal mail as an example of how the eu destroyed us.

shameful stuff.
i know of one on here who was delighted to buy their shares yet wouldnt of been able to have done so if it wasnt for the eu.

also on that.
germany and frnace delayed the anti monopoly decision to protect their workers.
yet we went in and agreed to comply from the start.

this country is ****** up from within.
not by the eu

The UK does not need external enemies when we have the type of politician/ political elite that has been around for the last 30 plus years, they have done more damage than the Nazis ever could.
I do believe that it is a cultural thing for Brits, like my father always says no one hates the Brits like the Brits hate themselves. We never seem to pass up an opportunity to each other in the nuts.

Kick

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Steel

"metal bashing jobs "  i think we do need manufacturing jobs ,you think we dont need steel or its manufacturing or engineering ? including the construction side of the  business , homes and industrial building construction  material ?

i think we do need them ,in fact the argument here is that the  benefit from cheap steel should be fully exploited

Markets are still not "free" and i suspect the price of all the items manufactured out of steel is artificially high .

UK has a great  engineering and manufacturing  history ,we need investment ,but its where to support and where not to .

If we cant compete with the massive state funded foundry's/mills of china we should be able to produce something from that very cheep product .Instead people just want to import something and it goes through the double up process several times before a consumer pays for it ,as prices rise and margins disappear  these businesses suffer  and we end up with all sorts of problems for the economy.
We need a plan for the future ,we need to manufacture to allow good UK based  profits to keep the economy growing.

I do agree bb but if you understood my post it was heavily ironic quoting how the Labour minister Peter Mandelsson addressed the problem when Redcar steel works was being closed 8-9 years ago. We need such manufacturing jobs to afford to pay politicians generous salaries and pensions mate.Some time the proverbial has to hit the fan and we find  we can't even pay welfare,pensions and benefits because we produce nowt.

another sheetmetal worker came on Radio5 on Sunday and said he had even noticed how the quality had deteriorated in the last 10 years, I've been out of the game for 8 years now so it must be really bad quality now. He said he hoped they were not planning to use it for HS2 or any new bridges because they would drop to bits.

Am I right in saying CAP protects EU's farmers in a way the Chinese are protecting their steel industry?

I recall hearing some years aho how Africa farmers could not compete with EU farmers due to subsidies. Protectionism aint new.

It amazes me how little we produce here. Not just big ticket stuff but tiny things like plastic bags..

At the Olympics in 2012 I walked in one of the 2 mega stores. All the souvenirs that I saw were made in China. For our friggin Olympics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much of it is driven by consumers who want cheap tat. How many of us would pay £10 for a t shirt for example when you can get one for £3 in Primark made in Indonesia?

Tis a crazy time we are living in.
The new Forth crossing built with Chinese steel whilst Sturgeon is on tv lamenting the closure of TATA steel in Motherwell.

Apparently it’s all just a myth put out by nasty right-wing columnists. Or so crows the Guardian, quoting EU-funded eco-propaganda site the Carbon Brief, claiming that the cost of green levies amounts to no more than one per cent of Port Talbot’s production costs. Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell agrees with this assessment. So that makes it all OK then, right?

Well, no. As we learn from Paul Homewood these “nothing to do with us, guv” claims are a downright lie.

In December last year the House of Commons Select Committee for Business, Innovation & Skills produced a report on the UK steel industry.

According to the industry, the price of electricity in the UK for extra large users is the highest in the EU by some margin. Figure 6 indicates that prices for these industrial consumers have risen steadily in the UK since the start of this century and were the highest in the EU in 2014.

Other studies have confirmed that electricity costs are relatively high in the UK for industrial users. Whilst energy costs may not represent a high proportion of total costs, we were told that they nonetheless represented a “significant proportion” and that “the margins are very small, so any disadvantage is magnified”.

Some of these relatively high costs can be attributed to policies designed to combat climate change. The Government estimates that climate change policies have added 18% to electricity prices for the steel industry, falling to 14% after compensatory measures are implemented.

According to the government’s own figures, climate policies are already adding 26 per cent to the cost of the electricity used by heavy industry. By 2020, the added cost caused by climate levies will rise to 59 per cent.

Tata, the Indian owner of the Port Talbot steel works, currently spends £250 million on energy for its European operations. So at UK rates, around £50 million of that cost consists of green levies. By 2020 this is set to rise to well over £100 million. In deciding to sell off its UK operations, then, Tata is thinking not just of the already inflated current energy costs but of the fact that the situation is going to get worse not better. Of course it’s going to move its steel production (“offshoring”) to wherever energy costs are cheaper: there would be no business sense in doing otherwise.

So yes, Chinese steel dumping may have played its part in the British steel industry’s demise. But so too, unquestionably, have all the environmental levies imposed by Labour’s Ed Miliband in his stint as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and subsequently endorsed by David Cameron in his bid to lead the “greenest government ever.”

And it’s not just steel that has been affected, as Matt Ridley notes:

Before Redcar and Port Talbot, remember Lynemouth, where Britain’s last large aluminium smelter closed in 2012. In aluminium, as in steel, China is now by far the largest producer, smelting five times as much as any other continent, let alone country. The chief reason aluminium left (though a small plant survives at Lochaber) was the sky-high electricity prices paid in Britain: electrolysis is how you make aluminium. For extra-large industrial users, British electricity prices are the highest in Europe, twice the average, and far higher than in Asia and America.

Ridley goes on to quote a particularly noisome piece of dishonesty from the loathsome Lord Deben, the green activist who chairs the government’s Committee on Climate Change and claims that Britain’s climate legislation is the “envy of the world.” Even more implausibly, Deben insists that there is “no evidence at all of offshoring due to climate policy” .

But as always with these stories, you can so easily get bogged down in the details that you lose sight of the big picture. For me, the two most important take-home messages from this ugly affair are as follows.

First, the green movement is ideologically opposed to Western industrial civilisation: so these factory closures are not a regrettable by-product but the very deliberate aim of its policies.

Second, just like the Social Justice Warriors, and just like the Islamists, the environmental movement has absolutely no problem with telling outright lies in the service of its cause. If you deliberately drive up energy prices by replacing cheap fossil fuels with expensive renewables costing three or more times than standard rate, then of course you are going to drive up the cost of living and of course you are going to penalise especially heavy industry users. Only someone with absolutely zero respect for the truth would have the gall even to pretend to argue otherwise.

Still, you can quite understand why at times like these the greens tone down their strident anti-capitalism. If ever the workers of the world got truly to appreciate just how much damage the environmentalists are doing to their livelihoods and job prospects, then the green movement would come to a very sudden and messy end.

are tata trying to get out of the steel industry or out of the pension fund
if a company can come in and with government help with pensions,energy,order book etc,then why isnt the same help given to tata,surely it must be far easier for the incumbent company to turn it around than someone new to the works,or after the eu reff will the new company just asset strip the profitable parts of the buisness,by all accounts the interested party recycles old steel into new hence meaning less demand for new steel

tata want out as they think conservatives dont give sh!t about steel in uk, can hardly blame them

Tata are  pulling out because they have realised how stupid UK politicians are that they have bought into the EU climate change theory and are taxing their businesses to death. Who can blame them for wanting out ? It happened up here at Alcan smelting and Redcar when Labour were in charge of the tax policy and the locals accepted it meekly but at least the Welsh are making more noise now the Conservatives are there to be attacked.

will the new owners get golden deals to take it on - I've seen a few examples of the government propping up companies with subsidies and then the new management disappear back to their native country with a chest full of cash.

by JAMES DELINGPOLE11 Apr 201669
The usual leftard suspects have been fighting a rearguard action in defence of their excuse that China – not insane green energy policy – was responsible for the death of British steel.

But Sanjeev Gupta disagrees. And he should know because he’s the white knight venture capitalist who has looked at the figures and volunteered to come to British steel’s rescue by replacing the outmoded blast furnaces at Port Talbot with more efficient electric arc furnaces.

No, Gupta doesn’t think protectionism against Chinese dumping would or could have saved the steel industry:

He also said imposing tariffs on imports of Chinese steel is not the way to save Britain’s steel sector. “Protection makes you inefficient, it can sustain uncompetitiveness,” Mr Gupta, added.

What he definitely will need, though, he says, if he’s to build a profitable business on the ashes of the old one is “relief from high energy prices.”

This profile in an Indian newspaper draws a similar conclusion:

The United Kingdom was praised across the world for becoming the first country to put in place a legally binding act to counter the climate change, although an attempt to replicate the same at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 failed. At its home turf, however, it was facing resistance from industrialists who saw the act as a threat to their profits and in some cases, economic sustainability.

“What started off as a minor inconvenience has become a major problem for the industries,” said Jeremy Nicholson, the director of energy intensive users group. “The government put in place annually escalating targets for electricity and signed the UK for a target by [the year] 2020 that was extraordinarily expensive.”

According to World Steel Association, electricity accounts for between 20% and 40% of the manufacturing costs. EUIG suggests that the UK steelmakers pay £80-90/MWh (between Rs 7,500 to 8,500/MWh). About £34/MWh (an equivalent of Rs 3,200/MWh) is owing to the “green taxes”. To make matters worse, the UK doesn’t have a nationalised energy sector and its industries pay among the highest of costs for electricity compared to its European and Chinese counterparts.

Mind you, let’s not forget the role the EU played in this disaster too. As the Express reveals, it actually loaned the Chinese millions of pounds to build new steel factories – even as it was running down European industry with its punitive decarbonisation programme and its obsession with expensive renewable energy.

As our own Nick Hallett discovered on a trip to Port Talbot the other day, there’s not a person in the town who wants anything other than exit from the European Union. Given what the EU has done to our industry, is it any wonder?

To make matters worse, the UK doesn’t have a nationalised energy sector

strange mix of positions in that article