Vital raw materials from America to keep British Steel’s Scunthorpe furnaces burning was being unloaded in docks on Tuesday in a race against time.
Industry minister Sarah Jones confirmed that the shipment had been paid for and that the rescue mission was being stepped up as the raw materials headed to Scunthorpe.
“There is a ship in Immingham Docks which will be unloading today...that’s unloading from the USA..that’s all paid for,” she told LBC Radio.
“There are other deliveries on their way. We bought at the commercial rate.”
Other stocks were coming from Australia and Sweden and more orders were being placed to ensure raw material supplies, she added, to keep both remaining blast furnaces going and the plant in a “steady state.”
The Government took control of British Steel and is facing a race against time to get material such as coking coal and iron ore to the site.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will visit the port in Immingham, North Lincolnshire, as supplies from two ships are unloaded and transported to the plant.
The materials, sent from the US, are enough to keep the furnaces running for weeks, the Department for Business and Trade said.
It comes after Downing Street said the Government was “confident” it would be able to secure the products necessary to keep the site running, and that work was ongoing to get a “steady pipeline” of materials.
A third ship with coking coal and iron ore is on its way to the UK from Australia after a legal dispute between British Steel and Chinese owner Jingye was resolved.
Jingye has been accused of planning to close the furnaces at the UK’s last virgin steel plant.
The Government’s “preference” is for a private sector partner to manage the Scunthorpe steel works, Ms Jones said, as she declined to rule out the possibility of another Chinese firm’s involvement, with ministers stressing they want to maintain UK-China trade.
With the Government considering several plans for the Scunthorpe plant, Ms Jones told Sky News: “All of these options are of course expensive, as we know: If we’d have allowed the site to close, if we’d have allowed those people to lose their jobs, the cost of remediating the site, the cost of closing it, the cost would have been over a billion pounds.
“Whatever the future for Scunthorpe, we want to make sure we can keep primary steel-making, we can keep steel-making in our country and we can grow that industry, not see the continued decline that we’ve had over recent years.”
China has warned the UK against “politicising” trade co-operation, and suggested its companies could be put off investing in Britain if they were not treated “fairly”.
Downing Street said it had become “clear” that the Chinese owners “wanted to shut the blast furnaces” during talks.
But No 10 said it was not aware of any “sabotage” at the plant, when asked if there were any concerns that officials from Jingye may have purposefully attempted to shut down the furnaces.
British Steel has appointed interim executives as efforts continue to try and secure its future.
