British Steel on the brink of adminstration.

[DeltonaS]

KarlMac said:

As a consultant working for both the UK and Ijmuiden site I can confirm that article is a load of old bks. I'm on the IJmuiden site next week to review progress on a not insignificant investment project on behalf of Tata.

As far as I'm aware only essential investment is going into Port Talbot, a few years ago this was for the blast furnace overhaul, which although it costs a lot of money is critical to the site operating.

IMHO the dutch are pissed off with Tata because they took a pile of government cash and used it to build a plant in India and have been looking to jettison the site ever since.

The article also has an undercurrent of the main issue dealing with that site - the absolute resistance to change or self reflection. The changes been made are to help make the site profitable and they're more concerned about decisions for Ijmuiden not being made by dutch staff

Interesting, thanks for the inside.

[DeltonaS]

DeltonaS said:

KarlMac said:

As a consultant working for both the UK and Ijmuiden site I can confirm that article is a load of old bks. I'm on the IJmuiden site next week to review progress on a not insignificant investment project on behalf of Tata.

As far as I'm aware only essential investment is going into Port Talbot, a few years ago this was for the blast furnace overhaul, which although it costs a lot of money is critical to the site operating.

IMHO the dutch are pissed off with Tata because they took a pile of government cash and used it to build a plant in India and have been looking to jettison the site ever since.

The article also has an undercurrent of the main issue dealing with that site - the absolute resistance to change or self reflection. The changes been made are to help make the site profitable and they're more concerned about decisions for Ijmuiden not being made by dutch staff

Interesting, thanks for the inside.

Reading some newspaper articles on the Hisarna project I can understand the Dutch (and the EU) being pissed, 75 million of EU funds:

Tata asked the Dutch governement for financial support for their (Hisarna) research project into environmentally-friendly methods of steel production. The Dutch government approved. It's a project in which the government already invested just under € 5 million back in 2009. There's a problem though: the plan fell outside the existing frameworks for innovation subsidies.

In the meantime, some civil servants fear that the benefits of the investment will be reaped abroad. Yet in 2015, after a visit from PM Mark Rutte to Tata's headquarters in India, another € 1.6 million from an energy innovation scheme was granted to the Indian company. The tests were deemed successful and Tata wanted to build a pilot plant. This required extra subsidy which didn't come. At the end of 2018, journalists hear that the Hisarna pilot plant - an investment of € 300 million - will most likely be build in India.

The Hisarna process has been perfected in IJmuiden for eight years. It is all the more remarkable that the parent company is now bringing the technology to India. In addition, the technology has been developed with other European steel groups with millions of subsidies from the European Union. So far 75 million euros has been invested in the development of Hisarna.

[amusingduck]

DeltonaS said:

The tests were deemed successful and Tata wanted to build a pilot plant. This required extra subsidy which didn't come. At the end of 2018, journalists hear that the Hisarna pilot plant - an investment of € 300 million - will most likely be build in India.

A "We need this"

B "no"

A "ok"

A "we'll build it in India then"


Am I missing something?

[KarlMac]

amusingduck said:

A "We need this"

B "no"

A "ok"

A "we'll build it in India then"


Am I missing something?

This is Tata's view of the situation. It's not just about the subsidy either. The cost of employment and legislation in NL is eye watering. For example for each €1 we pay as basic salary it costs us €2.40 in additional taxes, levies, contributions etc...

What is puzzling is that the dutch local government are so anti-industry they wouldn't have wanted the new plant building anywhere near IJmuiden. The local government are desperate to turn Wijk aan Zee into a holiday resort and can't do this with a steel works on the horizon.

[DeltonaS]

KarlMac said:

amusingduck said:

A "We need this"

B "no"

A "ok"

A "we'll build it in India then"


Am I missing something?

This is Tata's view of the situation. It's not just about the subsidy either. The cost of employment and legislation in NL is eye watering. For example for each €1 we pay as basic salary it costs us €2.40 in additional taxes, levies, contributions etc...

What is puzzling is that the dutch local government are so anti-industry they wouldn't have wanted the new plant building anywhere near IJmuiden. The local government are desperate to turn Wijk aan Zee into a holiday resort and can't do this with a steel works on the horizon.

The IJmuiden Hoogovens plant is more than a 100 years old, still employs about 9.000 people and received quite a bit of financial backing over these past decades.I don't think the local governement would like an extra 9.000 people on welfare.


Article from jan.2019
Wijk aan Zee vs. Tata Steel; in battle with an "untamable monster"
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/wijk-...

Residents are expected to watch on as the factory emits polution 24 hours a day; graphite rains, nitric oxide.
They want it to really stop now. But every time they turn to the "competent authority", the province of Noord-Holland, the residents get the idea that it is on Tata's side. Because why is Tata allowed exceed European standards ? And how is it possible that for almost two years the province did not realize that residual products were being processed illegally by Tata in IJmuiden, which caused the graphite rains to arise.
And so they have to fight the monster itself.

If you look at the most recent figures from the Dutch Emission Authority (NEa), you can see that Tata Steel emissions have only increased between 2014 and 2017. After the coal-fired power stations on the Maasvlakte (Rotterdam) and in Eemshaven (Groningen), Tata Steel is the most polluting company in the Netherlands with 6.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2017. The sizeable blast furnace site runs partly through the municipalities of Beverwijk, Heemskerk and especially Velsen, recently voted by the Central Bureau of Statistics as the country's dirtiest municipality, mainly due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Now it is "the black rain", also called "graphite rain", which has caused great unrest in Wijk aan Zee over the past six months. Cars, houses, bikes, streets and play grounds were covered with a shiny black material, coming over from the industrial neighbor, with a gentle southeast wind. And when the residents open the windows and doors for a moment, because of the continuing summer heat, the whole house was submerged.
In December 2016, the first stream of complaints came from Wijk aan Zee about "black glittering particles". Reference was made to Harsco, a listed American multinational company, located on the Tata Steel site. This company processes "the slag" from Tata Steel, a residual product of steel, and thereby releases dark dust deposits, as a result of "graphite explosions". It has to do with a new process with the ROZA snail, which was experimented with for the first time in 2014:

The difference with previous times is that the dissatisfaction in the village is now widely supported, "says Valent. "People are really worried and angry and also suspicious of those who should watch over our health. It is why people think about moving."
The outrage was further fueled by the release of mustard-colored clouds at the end of October last year in the event of a serious outage at Kooksfabriek 2 of Tata Steel, in which coal is processed. In 2017, the province of Noord-Holland also intervened at Kooksfabriek 1 because more carcinogenic PAHs were emitted than permitted. Then at the end of last year there was also the ILT inspection service of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management that announced that with the permission of the province of Noord-Holland, Tata emits more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than the European standards allow.

Even though the loyalty issue is deeply rooted in IJmond - after all, it is a company where nine thousand people earn their living, and on which another twenty thousand people in the IJmond depend, so let's be a bit lenient - was pushed into the background.
Laboratory testing of "wipe samples" initiated by the village council itself produced a disturbing result: heavy toxic metals were found, such as vanadium, zinc, chromium and lead. The two GPs from Wijk aan Zee sent a letter to the municipal council of Beverwijk, which includes the village, expressing their concerns about the many complaints of eyes and airways they encountered at their practice. They wrote that there is "a large population" of cancer patients among 2,200 residents and that there are relatively more children with "behavioral and concentration problems." Further health research is necessary, the GPs say, just like "cancer registration."

In 2009, RIVM wrote in the report "Living in the IJmond, unhealthy?" that "there is more lung cancer in certain areas in the IJmond than on average in the region". 'It appears that in the area where the influence of Corus (the current Tata Steel, ed.) On air quality used to be greatest, lung cancer is estimated to be 33 percent more often than in the areas where Corus emissions hardly contributed to or hardly contributed to the local air quality. "Said the RIVM. Because, according to researchers, there is a lot of smoking in this environment, this figure was "corrected" to 22 percent more lung cancer. In the meantime the RIVM is again conducting research, now on the "graphite rain", and the province of Noord-Holland wants to have a major investigation done on the health of the residents of Wijk aan Zee.
"It is very unlikely that there is a connection between the health problems and the emissions of Tata Steel," says Luc Verkouteren, living in Wijk aan Zee, working as a doctor in IJmuiden. "But whatever happens: the company is always reactive and never proactive to protect the population. Something only happens when they get thundered, and then they do the minimum, just like the government has to supervise. We are fighting against two Goliaths here: Tata Steel and the government that makes it happen. "

Tata Steel has announced that it is going to build a hall with extraction, so that the graphite emissions of the ROZA slag are not released into the open air. Only another slag is also processed, "the converter slag". Against the emissions of these in the open air, Tata says he will come up with "a solution direction" one day.
In addition to the problems with "the black rain", there is another tricky issue: too high nitrogen oxide emissions from the Blast Furnace 7. Tata Steel systematically exceeds the European standard - with the consent of the province of Noord-Holland. According to Tata, the European standard must be seen as "a guiding value," from which, for example, it is possible to deviate if it is too expensive.
But the ILT inspection service of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management finds the excessive emissions unacceptable and states that, in view of "the harmfulness", it is "not a subject of negotiation". The case has gone so high that one government agency, the ILT inspection service, the other agency, the province of Noord-Holland, has taken the case to court.

[Short Grain]

@DeltonaS - wow, just confirms the cynical side of MMGW, We,(Tata),can just keep buying influence, sod everyone / thing else!!

Why haven't the Dutch wing of ER got hold of this, right down their street I would have thought!!

[DeltonaS]

Short Grain said:

@DeltonaS - wow, just confirms the cynical side of MMGW, We,(Tata),can just keep buying influence, sod everyone / thing else!!

Why haven't the Dutch wing of ER got hold of this, right down their street I would have thought!!

I don't think you get my point, nor read the article.

It's not about MMGW, it's about (local) government being anti-industry according to KarlMac.

And of course do big company's have influence, everywhere, it's why many governments financially support them. Car company's in the USA (with cheap land and tax breaks), Airbus in Europe etc.etc. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Half of France's big company's are (partly) government owned.

Hoogovens is treated benefficially when it comes to national envionmental taxes for example.

My point is local government is so anti it oposes the very people with an already lient attitude towards Hoogovens/Tata, which are poluting their living environment. By the way you'll find similar lient behaviour in other areas with heavy industry, Port of Rotterdam, Ruhr Germany. Probably due to many generations of people in the area who work there directly or indirectly.

[gazza285]

KarlMac said:

What is puzzling is that the dutch local government are so anti-industry they wouldn't have wanted the new plant building anywhere near IJmuiden. The local government are desperate to turn Wijk aan Zee into a holiday resort and can't do this with a steel works on the horizon.

It never did Redcar any harm...





Or Port Talbot. Both extremely popular holiday resorts I reckon.