Harland and Wolff placed in Administration

[Tomvart]

The famous Belfast shipbuilder Harland and Wolff has confirmed that the business is being placed into administration after declaring huge losses.

Looks like HMGs previous decision not to offer a financial deal has hurt the company somewhat, and has put the future of the FSS project at serious risk.

BBC article here

Potential buyers - Spanish builders Navantia and Babcock International. UK shipbuilding really is in a perilous state!

[Dartskipper]

Placing a quick repeat order for some badly needed Frigates and patrol craft might have helped. The plans must be on a shelf somewhere. We will need them one day, but where will we build them if the yards have been sold off or closed?

[170 Driver]

And what will we build them out of, if all the steel yards have gone ?

[Orbitaman]

There are other yards in the UK capable of building warships, so why spend millions keeping this yard afloat?
H & W haven't built a ship in over 20 years, so the yard is now basically a repair facility and nothing more.

[Tomvart]

Its the facilities at H&W, rather than the capabilities I had in mind, they have a dock that will take the QEC, additionally - there are very few remaining yards that can build warships that don't belong to either BAE Systems or Babcock...I thought that competition was healthy for industry?

[Dartskipper]

Port Talbot won't be producing any more top quality steel now the blast furnace is being replaced by electric furnaces that can only recycle scrap.

[Makko]

Roy,

Generally, the iron produced in the blast furnace is used in the electric induction furnaces to produce the certified slabs for onward processing. An alternate method is the HYLSA process to produce pellets from sponge iron.

The use of scrap provides recycling and avoids the prior stages for processing of the base iron, making for savings in steel production. One of the problems with pure iron is that it oxidizes like the Billy-o and, if it gets wet, spontaneous combustion can occur.

With the myriad of steels now needed, everything is certified and verifiable. Scrap feed does not mean scrappy steel product.

Arcelor Mittal is probably the world's biggest producer. I know quite well their plant in Lazaro Cardenas, from the port facilities, where they unload sponge iron and ore, right through the process to the final disposal of the slabs by sea or land. A-M do away with Unions (LC was always on strike!) and squeeze every last drop of capacity from the plants. I have also collaborated with experts from many countries including an American who came out on History Channel - After a BF blow-out (stave failure), he wanted to dynamite the elephant's foot, but the LC manager got it out, almost complete, by mechanical methods in a relatively short time. On this claim, the worldwide logistics were amazing, for example, hundreds of carbon blocks by air charter from Luxembourg.

Rgds.
Dave