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In the face of the UK steel industry’s severe competitiveness issues LIBERTY Steel UK (LSUK) is to implement the next phase of its restructuring programme to ensure a sustainable future for its businesses and workforce.

天博体育官方网站 four point restructuring plan will create an entity聽positioned聽to better withstand challenging market conditions,聽serve strategic聽supply chains聽and聽provide the foundation for聽a decarbonised UK steel industry.

天博体育官方网站 four elements are:

• With the support of major customers, LSUK will focus on high value alloy steel production at Speciality Steel UK (SSUK) sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth serving strategic aerospace, energy and engineering supply chains. SSUK will ramp up high value production at specialist plants through the year with a view to breaking even in September, laying the ground for further upside potential. LSUK聽has halted the sale process for the Stocksbridge and Brinsworth plants.
• A reduction in primary production at Rotherham, replaced by imported billet and slabs to feed rolling and finishing lines at Rotherham, Scunthorpe, and Dalzell as an interim measure to mitigate the impact of uncompetitive energy costs.
• 天博体育官方网站 idling of LIBERTY Steel Newport and downstream processing facilities, and LIBERTY Performance Steel West Bromwich, with the former transformed into a sales and distribution hub for LIBERTY products.
• A commitment to restart commodity production and idled plants when the market and operating conditions allow, and a longer-term aim of growing Rotherham into a 2 million tonnes per year green steel facility.

Despite the injection of 拢200m of shareholder capital over the last two years, the production of some commodity grade products at Rotherham and downstream mills has become unviable in the short term due to high energy costs and imports from countries without the same environmental standards.聽 Primary production through Rotherham鈥檚 lower carbon electric arc furnaces (EAFs) will be temporarily reduced while uncompetitive operating conditions prevail.

天博体育官方网站se actions together with the聽idling聽of LIBERTY Performance Steels in West Bromwich and the reconfiguration of LIBERTY Steel Newport into a storage, distribution and trading hub, may potentially impact up to 440 roles across the business. 天博体育官方网站 company will consult with employee representatives, Trade Unions and UK Government throughout the process.

LIBERTY will offer an alternative to redundancy through its unique Workforce Solutions* programme, which aims to retain, redeploy and reskill affected colleagues.聽 Under the programme employees will be offered a level of guaranteed salary and outplacement opportunities, with the intention of being redeployed within LIBERTY Steel UK on previous employment terms when market conditions allow.

天博体育官方网站 steps laid out by LIBERTY will forge a viable way forward for the business, provide a safety net to affected employees and help聽safeguard jobs in LIBERTY鈥檚 wider workforce of聽1,900 permanent聽employees,聽and up to聽5,000聽including contractors.

Jeffrey Kabel, Chief Transformation Officer聽for聽LIBERTY Steel Group said:

鈥淩efocusing our operations will set the right platform for LIBERTY Steel UK鈥檚 high-quality manufacturing聽businesses聽to adapt quickly to challenging market realities.聽天博体育官方网站 support聽of聽our marquee customers will enable us to produce high value, differentiated products through 2023 and beyond for strategic sectors such as aerospace, defence and energy.聽We remain committed to our longer-term growth plans in the UK including our plan to grow Rotherham into a 2 million tonne green steel hub.

鈥淲hile our action is expected to聽regrettably聽impact the roles of some of our workforce we will provide a level of guaranteed salary and out placement opportunities through our unique Workforce Solutions programme as an alternative to redundancy. LIBERTY鈥檚 shareholder Sanjeev Gupta has supported the business through a very difficult period and聽remains committed to the workforce here in the UK and聽ensuring聽our lower carbon operations聽help聽deliver a sustainable, decarbonised UK steel industry.鈥�

Notes

• Workforce Solutions is a GFG initiative set up聽in 2020 by Sanjeev Gupta聽to provide a safety net to employees affected by redundancy, and to retain skills within the business and wider steel sector.
• Workforce Solutions works by providing any employee affected by redundancy an offer of a聽guaranteed聽a minimum salary聽(equivalent of 20 hours per week)聽and the opportunity to earn a full salary if redeployed.
• Workforce Solutions explores both redeployment with LIBERTY / GFG and works with local job placement agencies in affected areas on outplacement opportunities.
• An employee鈥檚 full redundancy rights are maintained under Workforce Solutions.

Further information from:

Note to the editors:

LIBERTY Steel Group, part of the and a leading GREENSTEEL producer, is a global integrated steel business bringing together assets across the steel supply chain, from production of liquid steel from raw and recycled materials through to high value precision engineered steels. With a total rolling capacity of 20 million tonnes, 200+ manufacturing locations globally across 10 countries and employing more than 30,000 people, LIBERTY Steel鈥檚 furnaces, mills, services centres and distribution sites across the UK, continental Europe, Australia, the United States and China serve demanding sectors such as construction, energy, aerospace, automotive, and infrastructure. LIBERTY Steel is a leader in sustainable industry with a mission to become Carbon Neutral by 2030 (CN30).聽

www.libertysteelgroup.com