Upon an initial assessment, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) claim that the impact of changes in Britain’s steelmaking capacity on military programmes remains low.
Such changes in steelmaking refer to a transition in the UK from traditional blast furnaces for crude steel production to the use of electric arc furnaces (EAFs), which instead melt scrap steel, which produces less carbon and need fewer people to operate.
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Of course, many platforms require various forms of steel from the forthcoming Dreadnought class of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines to stealthy F-35 fighter jets. Yet the UK has made the conscious decision to end its traditional practices of producing virgin steel from iron ore with the closure of blast furnaces at Port Talbot in September 2024.
In doing so, according to one think tank, Britain will be the only economy in the G20 without this sovereign capability.
However, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, is less concerned about the risk of reliance on scrap steel. In a parliamentary written response on 30 October, it was the Minister of State who intimated that the risk on defence is “deemed to be low.”
At the same time, the Defence Industrial Strategy, issued in September, underlined the need for action when it comes to cultivating a stronger domestic supply chain for steel.
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By GlobalDataNevertheless, the government will continue to investigate the impact on UK defence more closely in another Steel Strategy as they look to ensure that, despite the changes, the country can cultivate a competitive and sustainable steel industry.
Steel in defence
The attrition rate of platforms in the Russia-Ukraine war gives some sense of the industrial scale needed to replace and sustain platforms across air, land, and sea, especially considering the battlespace is saturated with low cost loitering munitions.
Throughout last year, Defence Equipment & Support alone procured steel components from Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Türkiye according to government figures. Naval Technology also discovered that the majority of steel procured for the Type 26 and 31 frigate programmes are procured from within the European Union.
As is always the case in war, production should surpass requirement. The ambition to develop EAFs would only go some way to recovering the lost capability. Nevertheless, the UK has an abundance of scrap metal which is largely exported. This could instead be used in the domestic steel sector through recycling.
However, the arc process can only recycle used steel, with subsequent steel unable to be refined to the standard necessary for high-end military use, such as submarine manufacture. But it is said that scientists are working on ways to improve the quality of recycled steel, and the addition of an iron source, such as direct reduced iron, should allow the UK to produce the highest qualities of steel for demanding applications.
