Good news for the north east!

[Lancpudn]

Britishvolt have chosen Blyth to build it's lithium ion battery gigafactory, 3000 jobs for the area. https://www.just-auto.com/news/briti..._id199221.aspx

[marinabrian]

Originally Posted by Lancpudn

Britishvolt have chosen Blyth to build it's lithium ion battery gigafactory, 3000 jobs for the area. https://www.just-auto.com/news/briti..._id199221.aspx

Technically Cambois or even North Blyth, but it's only a name I suppose

It's rather ironic that they have chosen the former site of a pair of coal fired power stations with a 1730MW combined output.

I recall visiting the site in the early nineties for a job interview with the CEGB for a position within the decommissioning team.

One of the most impressive features of the B station was a direct conveyor from Ellington colliery to supply the coal for the boilers.

The four chimneys were finally demolished in December 2003, as there was a large exclusion zone, I watched from high ground to the east of Bedlington.

There is a ready built ship unloading facility, formerly used for alumina to supply the nearby Alcan smelting plant in Lynemouth, incidentally Alcan had their own small 420MW coal fired power station which was able to export excess generation to the grid.

This was converted to biomass to avoid closure, but the current owners of the Alcan facility, Rio Tinto have no plans to recommission the smelting plant.

The "SUF" was co owned by Port of Blyth, Alcan and serviced formerly by "D boat" bulk carriers operated by Stephenson Clarke Shipping, the Dallington, Durrington and the Storrington.

When European Environmental Change levy (CCL) was introduced, it became unprofitable to operate energy hungry industries in this country, so it comes full circle now


MV Storrington pictured having discharged her cargo..



Stephenson Clarke Shipping, the oldest shipping company in the UK, founded in 1730 went into liquidation in 2012 as a result

Now ask me if I'm impressed by the proposed new battery plant? not really, I would have thought it would have made more sense to site it in Cornwall, nearer the source of the raw materials

Brian

[Alf Best]

Originally Posted by Lancpudn

Britishvolt have chosen Blyth to build it's lithium ion battery gigafactory, 3000 jobs for the area. https://www.just-auto.com/news/briti..._id199221.aspx

Hmm, their company balance sheet as of July 2020 shows current assets totaling £223,000, of which £165,000 are attributable to debtors.


They floated the company with 50,000,000 ordinary shares valued at .001p each, so £50,000 - the unpaid share premium being .00075p per share which gives an aggregate unpaid value of £37500.


Forgive me for appearing a little less than enthusiastic about a company which has existed for less than one year, changed it's incorporated status less than five months ago, shows cash at bank figures of less than £60,000 yet plans to build a plant at a projected cost of 2.6 Billion pounds !!!


Quite an impressive feat if they can pull it off, but for some reason this smells like something John DeLorean or Freddie Laker might have dreamed up?


I think this might take a bit longer than anticipated, if at all, and the odds look fairly long.


But if nothing else it diverted the news away from the real world, and Sharon Barbour reporting from outside various regional hospitals.

[WillyHeckaslike]

From what I've googled I think that it is still a private company which is considering floating in 2021 to raise more funds for the project. It is currently backed by 25 investors from Abu Dhabi and Scandinavia and it has applied for dosh from the UK's expenses fiddlers. It is proposed to build on the site in 3 stages and I would not bet against the site being gifted for a peppercorn amount - the site of the former Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland was sold for £1 to facilitate the building of The Stadium of Blight. I think that the factory will be built, it fits with the current political trend for green credentials and it repurposes what I would guess is a brownfield site.

[marinabrian]

Originally Posted by WillyHeckaslike

From what I've googled I think that it is still a private company which is considering floating in 2021 to raise more funds for the project. It is currently backed by 25 investors from Abu Dhabi and Scandinavia and it has applied for dosh from the UK's expenses fiddlers. It is proposed to build on the site in 3 stages and I would not bet against the site being gifted for a peppercorn amount - the site of the former Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland was sold for £1 to facilitate the building of The Stadium of Blight. I think that the factory will be built, it fits with the current political trend for green credentials and it repurposes what I would guess is a brownfield site.

I don't know how Alf arrived at those figures Steve, but I would have thought even if the site is gifted to the company, and I'm familiar with the site, I would have thought the fact that Britishvolt is in essence a start up company with apparently very little capital behind them, that even with the green credentials this appears to have on the face of things, it looks to have the making of a very shaky investment indeed.

I would love to be proved wrong, however I would hate to think this became a money pit for the public purse, with negligible liability for a private company with no history whatsoever.

It's easy to see the scepticism surrounding a project of this magnitude, and it would hve been better to have seen a company with a little more gravitas with a proposal of this type before hanging out the bunting.

Personally I think there is so much clamour for good news at the moment, people seem all too willing to overlook the detail.

We'll have to wait and see what happens, and see if the redevelopment of the site goes forward at a faster rate than say the Vaux brewery site

Brian

[Lancpudn]

The government are throwing a £1billion autmotive transformation fund at these battery start up companies, JLR are getting a slice of the pie (besides Britishvolt) to build another place in Castle Bromwich for a new electric car production plant & technical centre.


The UK government has said it fears a reliance on Chinese/South Korea Japan for lithium ion battery supplies when we need the automotive jobs here.



The upcoming Euro Cat 7 will see all new cars with batteries in them whether BEV or PHEV as soon as 2025, a ICE car wont meet the stricter standards.
There are 15 gigafactories near to completion across the EU already ready for the transfer to electric vehicles.

[WillyHeckaslike]

Originally Posted by marinabrian

We'll have to wait and see what happens, and see if the redevelopment of the site goes forward at a faster rate than say the Vaux brewery site Brian

Ah, but Brian, the proposed site for the battery factory is outwith the reach of the outfit operating as Sunderland's council. Its dabs are all over the Vaux site fiasco and ditto the adjoining Galleys Gill site. And please have mercy and do not mention its attempts to build a bus stop at the Toll Bar, I stopped counting after 5 reworks having lost the will to live.

[wraymond]

The level of seed money is questionably low. Intended to hopefully create a landslide? There's a whiff of bandwagons in the air.

[Nobby]

Oh dear, doesn't seem to be getting off to a good start if the latest news is to be believed "The co-founder and chairman of the company planning to build the UK’s first gigafactory in the North East of England has quit after it emerged he was convicted for tax fraud in Sweden"

[Lancpudn]

Originally Posted by Nobby

Oh dear, doesn't seem to be getting off to a good start if the latest news is to be believed "The co-founder and chairman of the company planning to build the UK’s first gigafactory in the North East of England has quit after it emerged he was convicted for tax fraud in Sweden"

Shocking!