Redcar Bulk Terminal (RBT), also known as Redcar Ore Terminal, is a privately run dock at the mouth of the
Tees Estuary in
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
, England. The port is used for the transhipment of coal and coke (both inward and outward flows) and for many years was the import dock for iron ore destined for
Redcar Steelworks under
British Steel Corporation
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
,
British Steel plc
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
,
Corus,
Tata Steel Europe
Tata Steel Europe Ltd. (formerly Corus Group plc) was a steelmaking company headquartered in London, England, with its main operations in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company was created in 2007, when Tata Group took over the ...
and
Sahaviriya Steel Industries
Sahaviriya Steel Industries PCL or simply SSI ( th, บริษัท สหวิริยาสตีลอินดัสตรี จำกัด (มหาชน)) is a Thai Multinational corporation, Multinational Steel-making company headq ...
(SSI UK).
The port is not part of the
Teesport
Teesport is a large sea port located in the unitary authority of Redcar and Cleveland, in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, Northern England.
Owned by PD Ports, it is located approximately inland from the North Sea and east of Middl ...
estate run by
PD Ports
PD Ports is a Middlesbrough, UK headquartered port, shipping and logistics company; owner of Teesport, and ports at Hartlepool, Howden and Keadby; with additional operations at the Port of Felixstowe, Port of Immingham, and Port of Hull.
Form ...
but is instead owned by SSI UK (in liquidation). It is one of only four UK ports that are capable of handling
Capesize
Capesize ships are the largest dry cargo ships with ball mark dimension: about 170,000 DWT (deadweight tonnage) capacity, 290 m long, 45 m beam (wide), 18m draught (under water depth). They are too large to transit the Suez Canal ( Suezmax limi ...
vessels.
History
Located in the borough of
Redcar and Cleveland
Redcar and Cleveland is a borough with unitary authority status in North Yorkshire, England. Its main settlements are Redcar, South Bank, Eston, Brotton, Guisborough, the Greater Eston part of Middlesbrough, Loftus, Saltburn and Skelton. Th ...
in the ceremonial county of
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
, the bulk terminal is on the south bank of the River Tees. It is the deepest part of the Teesport area and the deepest port () in eastern England. The port is capable of handling
Panamax
Panamax and New Panamax (or Neopanamax) are terms for the size limits for ships travelling through the Panama Canal. The limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) in a publication titled "Vessel Requirements". ...
and
Capesize
Capesize ships are the largest dry cargo ships with ball mark dimension: about 170,000 DWT (deadweight tonnage) capacity, 290 m long, 45 m beam (wide), 18m draught (under water depth). They are too large to transit the Suez Canal ( Suezmax limi ...
vessels, with Redcar being only one of four that can take the Capesize vessels in the United Kingdom.
The site at Redcar had been used as a dock since the 1850s, and had also been investigated by the Shell oil company as possible site for their operations, but despite an optimistic assessment by a hydraulics engineering company, Shell did not build on the site with their operations being located further upstream.
The site was chosen by Sir W Halcrow and the new terminal was announced in 1969 when it was also considered as a point of import for iron ore for the
Scunthorpe Steelworks
The Iron and Steel Industry in Scunthorpe was established in the mid 19th century, following the discovery and exploitation of middle Lias ironstone east of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England.
Initially iron ore was exported to iron pro ...
, but British Steel Corporation (BSC) opened a second iron ore dock at
Immingham
Immingham is a town, civil parish and ward in the North East Lincolnshire unitary authority of England. It is situated on the south-west bank of the Humber Estuary, and is north-west from Grimsby.
The region was relatively unpopulated and un ...
to supply the
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
side of its operations. Whilst primarily an import terminal for Teesside, the terminal began running trains to
Consett Steelworks from 1974 for BSC instead of those trains originating on
Tyneside
Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt.
The population of Tyneside as published i ...
.
Between 1969 and 1972, an area covering over was excavated with depths up to . The company created the bulk import terminal to supply the adjacent Redcar Steelworks which had been opened in 1917 by
Dorman Long
Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. It was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.
History
The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long when they acquired ''West Marsh ...
and which became part of British Steel Corporation in 1967. £15 million was spent locating the port on the edge of the Redcar steel estate which could accommodate vessels of between and whereas before that, the maximum deadweight (DWT) that could be offloaded at the site was . An enlarged Redcar port with a quay
was opened by the British Steel Corporation (BSC) in 1973 after it had developed the dock area and had the River Tees deepened.
The first vessel to dock there was the ''"Owari Maru"'' on the 6 September 1973, a ship carrying iron ore for the Redcar steelworks.
BSC was privatised into British Steel in 1988 and when British Steel merged with
Koninklijke Hoogovens
Koninklijke Hoogovens known as Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken (KNHS) until 1996 or informally Hoogovens. was a Dutch steel producer founded in 1918. Since 2010, the plant is named Tata Steel IJmuiden.
The IJmuiden steelwor ...
in 1999, the new venture, named Corus, used the facility for the importation of iron ore and coal for the Redcar steelworks. Both Tata, and latterly SSSI (the subsequent owners of the steelworks) used the dock to import raw materials.
An average of of iron ore per annum was imported through the dock in 2000–2009 period. In 2009, the steelworks was closed, but Tata retained control of the dock. When the steelworks site was handed over to SSI in 2011, Tata retained a joint stake in the dock to allow them the flexibility to still use it to import coal and iron ore if necessary.
Tata Steel's 50% stake in the venture was later sold to
British Steel Limited
British Steel Limited is a long steel products business founded in 2016 with assets acquired from Tata Steel Europe by Greybull Capital, then acquired by Jingye Group in 2020. The primary steel production site is Scunthorpe Steelworks, with r ...
in 2017 but in February 2020 this was acquired by SSI, therefore returning the terminal to unified ownership under the Official Receiver (administering SSI UK since its 2015 liquidation), although the berth itself is actually owned by PD Ports.
The port lost a huge tonnage of its business when the SSI steel plant adjacent was mothballed in 2015. Since then it has handled between and of trade per year, though the complex has the ability to handle .
The terminal has the ability of unload from a train and load onto another train simultaneously. It also has over of sidings with over 70% of its business arriving or leaving by rail.
In 2019, RBT covered an area of and has a connection to the railway lines on south Teesside. In the past, the terminal has despatched trainloads of coal for power stations via many freight operating companies. Imported coal has been moved to power stations (
Fiddlers Ferry in 2016 for example) and coal has been forwarded to Redcar from opencast sites in Scotland for export. Due to a downturn in
ESI coal imports, trainloads of coal have dropped from 50 per week in 2013 to 15 per week in 2019. The terminal has also been used to import
Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag
Ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS or GGBFS) is obtained by quenching molten iron slag (a by-product of iron and steel-making) from a blast furnace in water or steam, to produce a glassy, granular product that is then dried and ground into ...
(GGBS) to
Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe () is an industrial town and unparished area in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, England of which it is the main administrative centre. Scunthorpe had an estimated total population of 82,334 in 2016. A pre ...
and also as a forwarding point for unused iron ore from when the adjacent steelworks was closed, both in 2009 and in 2015.
Key products
''The letter after the product indicates whether it is imported (I) or exported (E)''.
*Coal (E future) (I)
*Coke (E) (I)
*
GGBS (I)
*Iron ore (1972-2015) (I)
*
Petroleum coke
Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in particular, derives from a final cracki ...
(Petcoke) (I)
*
Polyhalite
Polyhalite is an evaporite mineral, a hydrated sulfate of potassium, calcium and magnesium with formula: . Polyhalite crystallizes in the triclinic system, although crystals are very rare. The normal habit is massive to fibrous. It is typically co ...
(future) (E)
*Scrap metal (E)
Redcar is the preferred option for the export of
metallurgical coal
Metallurgical coal or coking coal is a grade of coal that can be used to produce good-quality coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled ...
(for coking) from the
Woodhouse Colliery site in
West Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
. Up to six trains daily would run between
Whitehaven
Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It is th ...
and Redcar delivering the coal.
In July 2018, Sirius Minerals, the operators of
Woodsmith Mine
Woodsmith Mine is a deep potash and polyhalite mine located near to the hamlet of Sneatonthorpe, Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The venture was started by York Potash Ltd, which became a subsidiary of Sirius Minerals plc whose primary focus ...
, signed an agreement to export up to of polyhalite per year from Redcar. The mineral would arrive at the Bran Sands site via a underground conveyor belt from the Woodsmith Mine site. RBT would then store and export the mineral via its quayside.
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Redcar Bulk Terminal
Ports and harbours of Yorkshire
River Tees
Places in the Tees Valley
Transport in Redcar and Cleveland
Teesside
Redcar
Railway freight terminals in the United Kingdom