LIBERTY Steel Group UK has reaffirmed its commitment to the UK as it sets out the next phase of its Greensteel strategy with investment programmes focussed on an evolving market demand and gaps in the domestic supply chain.

LSUK has recruited leading equipment provider Danieli to develop its longer-term plans for a Greensteel hub at its Newport site, where the business already owns and operates a hot rolled coil mill.

The new Greensteel hub would see investment in Danieli’s latest energy efficient Q-One Electric Arc Furnace technology and other site upgrades to create a compact direct cast strip plant capable of producing 1.5-2mtpa thin gauge HRC for the UK market.

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The development depends on a competitive investment environment and the completion of SIMEC Atlantis Energy’s sustainable power station conversion project at the adjacent Uskmouth power station in Newport. The power station could feed the new development at Liberty Steel Newport with competitive power, a key ingredient in the Greensteel strategy.

SAE’s conversion project is the first in the world of its kind and is currently in an advanced state of conducting technical tests and planning approvals.

Liberty Group chairman Sanjeev Gupta, who lives in Monmouthshire, said: “Carbon-based steel was the foundation of the last industrial revolution, but we must now think differently to meet today’s challenges of decarbonisation and growing consumption of steel globally.

“By utilising the abundance of steel scrap in the UK and harnessing the opportunity that the Uskmouth power plant development brings to generate power from waste derived fuel pellets, we can create a highly competitive and sustainable Greensteel hub in Newport. These plans could reduce emissions from steel making by as much as 90 per cent vs the blast furnace production route using coal.

“Liberty’s steel and SIMEC’s energy together would form a truly circular economy. We would not only use the abundant supply of steel scrap in the UK that is currently exported only to return as steel made in other countries, we would also address a critical problem of end-of-life waste going into landfill.”

LSUK has also announced that it will boost production at its Rotherham to more than 1mtpa through investments to expand its product mix and making more productive use of its rolling mills to target attractive market segments.

UK market demand for reinforcement bar amounts to about 1.2 million tonnes annually, worth more than £500 million. At present, half of this demand is met by imports, despite there being a surplus of scrap metal recovered in the UK which could be recycled into new steel products through Electric Arc Furnace.

Given this gap in the market and further growth in construction expected from infrastructure projects such as HS2, LSUK is targeting this market by expanding its Greensteel product range.