Liberty House is mulling scrapping redundant oil rigs in the North Sea to produce feedstock for its proposed electric arc furnace in Scotland, a Liberty spokesman confirms to Kallanish. The exact location of the EAF is yet to be decided.

Analysts Douglas-Westwood said earlier this year 146 oil rigs the UK North Sea are expected to be scrapped over 2019-2026. This is a result of the slump in oil prices that has made drilling for oil in the UK North Sea uneconomic.

Earlier this year Liberty executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta called on the UK steel industry to invest in facilities for melting and upcycling Britain’s growing mountain of scrap steel, powered by renewable energy (see Kallanish 10 June). This would involve the introduction of modern EAFs in combination with the continued production of primary steel in blast furnaces.

Last week Liberty resumed production at the revived Dalzell plate mill in Motherwell that it bought from Tata Steel in April. The neighbouring Clydebridge works at Cambuslang, also acquired by Liberty from Tata, will come back on stream in due course.