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https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... n-coalmine says

Claims that a new coalmine in Cumbria will help supply British-made steel and replace Russian imports do not “stack up”, a senior industry figure has warned, as the government prepares to make a final decision over the project.

Supporters of the proposed mine, which would be the UK’s first new coalmine in 30 years, have suggested that at least a share of the coal produced would be used in domestic steel production. They also say it could lower reliance on Russian coking coal in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

However, influential figures in the steel industry have become increasingly frustrated about the claims – with the two domestic steel producers understood to be unlikely to be significant customers for the mine’s coal. Chris McDonald, chief executive of the Materials Processing Institute, which serves as the UK’s national centre for steel research, said there was no demand from his industry for the West Cumbria mine.

“There’s a frustration hearing other industries speaking on behalf of the steel industry when the steel industry itself has not come out to say that it wants this mine,” he told the Observer. “I would contend that there isn’t a demand for it. The case for the mine has been built around the need for coking coal produced in the UK for the UK steel industry. That’s the case that the coal industry is making. But that doesn’t stack up with the needs of the steel industry.

Until now - on balance - I was a supporter of the mine (jobs in a depressed region, development of a supply-chain, eliminate shipping of coal from abroad, etc.) If we shall not be using the coal anyway then I am agin it now!

Steel doesn’t use coal it uses coke and as far as I remember I think all our coking batteries were closed and demolished in the nineties ? So steel plants buy coke from overseas not coal. That said surely all the mine has to do is look at what the uk imports annually and see if that matches or exceeds their planned production- if it does then they have a market as long as they can turn a profit while still being cheaper than their importing competitors - then the UK government needs to ensure competitors coal isn’t being subsidised to buy the market so as to maintain a fair market place.

We do need to have our own coal supplies just as we do other resources as we have seen recently complete reliance on others can leave you badly exposed and vulnerable.

The government seems to realise this with semiconductors but struggles with other sectors ?

Coal hasn’t got a good reputation but it’s not the coal it’s humans and how we utilise a valuable resource - Don’t forget UK anthracite is some of the finest and purest carbon deposit on the planet so let’s not blow it up chimneys let’s make stuff with it and increase its value.

Moxi

Moxi wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 1:35 pm Steel doesn’t use coal it uses coke and as far as I remember I think all our coking batteries were closed and demolished in the nineties ? So steel plants buy coke from overseas not coal. That said surely all the mine has to do is look at what the uk imports annually and see if that matches or exceeds their planned production- if it does then they have a market as long as they can turn a profit while still being cheaper than their importing competitors - then the UK government needs to ensure competitors coal isn’t being subsidised to buy the market so as to maintain a fair market place.

We do need to have our own coal supplies just as we do other resources as we have seen recently complete reliance on others can leave you badly exposed and vulnerable.

The government seems to realise this with semiconductors but struggles with other sectors ?

Coal hasn’t got a good reputation but it’s not the coal it’s humans and how we utilise a valuable resource - Don’t forget UK anthracite is some of the finest and purest carbon deposit on the planet so let’s not blow it up chimneys let’s make stuff with it and increase its value.

Moxi

Actually coal is used. It is made into coke on site because the coal gas that is generated is used to pre-heat the blast-furnace air. Otherwise you need a source of heat for this, wikipedia says about Port Talbot integrated steelmaking site

An integrated steelmaking site using imported ore and coal, together with Llanwern steelworks, the plants produced up to 3.5 million tonnes of hot rolled and cold rolled annealed steel coils per annum, for a variety of different end uses. Output is taken by rail from Margam Knuckle Yard to: Shotton for coating; Trostre for tinplating; or direct to the Midlands motor industry and domestic goods.

On the extensive steelworks site, fume and water vapour from, predominantly, Coke Oven Quench towers, Sinter Plant Stacks and cooling towers can be observed from many miles away together with ignited by-product gasses from various production units. When exiting Port Talbot in an easterly direction, the Abbey Works steel products plant (which is over 1 mile (1.6 km) long) is clearly visible. The smell of sulphur often hangs over this part of the town.

and the steel industry man said in the article that they didn't want the Cumbrian coal because the chlorine content was too high.

Sorry AE steelmaking doesn’t use coal, we use coke to replace carbon in the molten bath that’s blown out during the refining process in both basic oxygen and electric arc making steel practises.

Iron ore reduction as you say can use coal in traditional blast furnace iron production processes but also we can use natural gas in a process called direct reduced iron production which creates a pelletised iron product - note for DRI they use steam cracking of a portion of the natural gas to create more hydrogen in the gas stream which improves reduction chemistry and annual production.

My apologies I spent 15 years as a steel industry consultant primarily in front end steel making on EAF,s but also integrated plants so I focused on the words steel and coal and as I say steelmaking doesn’t use coal but you are quite correct that the iron making aspect of integrated plants does use coal where it’s cheap enough and low in sulphur and other volatiles. It sounds as though the Cumbrian proposed mine is following coal seams under the sea if it’s got a lot of chlorine in it ?

This whole front end iron making is one of the problems for port talbert and llanwern as well as Scunthorpe (Appleby Frodingham) and the reason they will ultimately close just as Ravenscraig did because the cost to bring iron ore as well as coke half way round the world to reduce isn’t cost effective plus the advent of better cheaper vacuum degassing and refining means we are able to produce tight tolerance steel specifications using the highly efficient EAF and ladle steel making process rather than the integrated route thus mini mill operation of around six hundred people can easily produce two million tonnes per year of a huge variety of steel grades ranging from plain carbon through engineering grades to stainless grades - something the integrated plants cannot do.

Moxi