Scottish port agency proposes EAF mill

A port authority that manages a brownfield site in Scotland has reportedly created an economic development plan that includes the siting of a scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill.

Several media reports from the United Kingdom indicate the Ardersier Port Authority in Scotland has included an EAF mill among the facilities and services that would be part of a proposed “circular Energy Transition Facility.”

A report from Insider.co.uk says the goal of the plan involves “recycling the oil rigs of the past to make foundations for future fleets of floating offshore windfarms.”

An industrial complex at the port of Ardersier formerly fabricated offshore oil rigs, according to a report by the BBC. “The yard shut in 2001 and since then it has become a brownfield site, formerly developed and now disused land,” adds the news agency.

Descriptions and a map of the proposed redevelopment of the 400-acre parcel include references to an oil rig decommissioning facility, the EAF steel mill, a waste-to-energy facility. The BBC says planners also envision “a concrete wind turbine foundation ‘hub’ [that] would use dredged sand and recycled steel in its manufacturing processes.”

While online reports indicate a French company has expressed interest as a potential investor in the wind turbine hub fabrication plant, no existing steelmakers have yet been named as having been approached or having shown interest in EAF production at the site.