NOVEMBER 2019
BUSINESS NEWS
Jingye Group pledges £1.2bn
investment into British Steel
Completion of acquisition secures approximately 3,200 jobs
SUNAK GIVES BUDGET
BOOST FOR R&D jason ford reports
Rishi Sunak has promised to ‘get
things done’ in a budget speech
that saw the chancellor pledge
an increase in R&D investment to
£22bn a year.
Sunak’s Spring Budget will see
a further £5.2bn invested into fl ood
defence over six years, £500m to
support the rollout of a super-fast
electric vehicle charging network,
£533m to extend the Plug-in Grant
schemes for ultra-low emission
vehicles to 2023, and at least
£800m to establish two or more
new Carbon Capture and Storage
clusters by 2030.
As part of the Treasury’s
spending plans, £800m will go
toward the establishment of ‘a
new blues-skies funding agency’
modelled on the USA’s Advanced
Research Projects Agency, latterly
the Defense Advanced Research
Agency (DARPA).
“If the new ARPA-like agency
has less red tape and was truly
agile in its approach to funding
ground-breaking projects, it could
be very effective,” said Mark
Smith from business performance
consultancy Ayming UK and
Ireland. JF
Nissan presses ahead in Sunderland
Preparations for the next generation Qashqai have stepped up a gear with
the unveiling of a new £52m extra-large press line at Nissan Sunderland.
Weighing over 2,000 tonnes, the new press took 18 months to install
and is part of a £400m investment by Nissan.
The fi rst specially commissioned panels on the press were produced on
March 6, 2020, at a ceremony led by Ashwani Gupta, Nissan’s COO.
“When the fi rst Nissan Qashqai rolled off the line in Sunderland in 2006
it created the crossover segment,” Gupta said in a statement. “Designed,
engineered and made in the UK, and more than three million vehicles later,
it remains the benchmark, just as our team in the UK continues to set the
standard for productivity and quality.”
The £53m investment in the press includes a recycling system to
segregate and process scrap, and upgrades to the existing blanking line
which will supply fl at blanks to the extra-large press, which will stamp over
six million vehicle panels a year.
Commenting on the investment, Steve Bush, Unite union’s national
April 2020 / www.theengineer.co.uk 12
offi cer for the automotive
industry said: “The
reaffi rmation of this
already announced
investment of £400m
in a new production
press at the Sunderland
plant is a welcome
confi dence booster for the
6,000-strong workforce.
“In challenging economic times, such investment by Nissan is warmly
welcomed and a big vote of confi dence in the world class, highly skilled
workforce that has an excellent record in producing world-class cars.”
According to Nissan, the £400m invested for Qashqai comes on top of
the £100m invested for the launch of new Juke and is part of an overall £1bn
planned investment into the Sunderland plant over fi ve years.
Jingye Group is to invest
£1.2bn into British Steel
following the Chinese
steelmaker’s acquisition
of the company’s UK and
Netherlands assets.
Included in the transaction
are British Steel’s steelworks
at Scunthorpe and UK mills
at Teesside Beam Mill and
Skinningrove, plus subsidiary
businesses FN Steel in the
Netherlands and TSP Engineering.
Jingye plans to return the
company to industry comparable
margins within fi ve years with
initiatives that include developing
an electric arc furnace in Teesside,
building a 250MW power plant at
the Scunthorpe site, building a
new rebar line, and improving the
current rail mill.
Li Huiming, Jingye Group CEO,
said: “It has not been an easy
journey since we fi rst announced
our intentions in November
but the longer I have spent in
Scunthorpe, the more I have
come to believe in the successful
future of these steelworks and
the employees that have made
them famous throughout the
world. Together, we can forge a
new partnership that will mark
the beginning of a new illustrious
chapter in the history of British
steelmaking.”
Commenting on the deal,
Gareth Stace, UK Steel director
general said: “After almost a year
of huge uncertainty, punctuated
by numerous setbacks, to have
completed the sale of British
Steel to a long term investor
with a positive and ambitious
plan for the future, is a hugely
signifi cant accomplishment and
one the government must be
congratulated on.
“As we turn the page on
this particular chapter in the
steel industry, I implore the
government to learn the lessons
from this narrowly averted crisis
and not return to business as
usual. It is important we move
on from the current reactive
approach, to one in which a
shared, long-term strategic vision
sits front and centre.”
The completion, which secures
approximately 3,200 jobs, does
not include British Steel’s French
operations which are subject to
further negotiations.
Read more at
www.theengineer.co.uk
Japanese car giant installs essential production tool
Al/stock.adobe.com
/www.theengineer.co.uk
/www.theengineer.co.uk
/stock.adobe.com