A DECISION is expected from the official receiver by the end of this week that will shed light on whether steelmaking on Teesside has any future.

Talks are ongoing between the receiver, advisors PWC, and Redcar plant bosses over whether to keep alive the site’s 162 coke ovens or let them burn out.

Sources close to the talks fear that if the ovens go out it will effectively sound the death knell for the entire works.

In the meantime, the smallest amount of coal possible is being used to keep the ovens burning and maintain hopes that about 400 jobs can be saved. There is enough fuel to last another couple of days.

Bosses at County Durham coal firm Hargreaves Services have held talks several times with the receiver - who was appointed on Friday last week after SSI UK was liquidated - but The Northern Echo understands that Hargreaves has no desire to take ownership of the ovens, the steelworks or manage the site.

The Esh Winning company has offered to continue managing the movement of coal and coke, but the receiver holds the purse strings and is responsible for making the final call on what happens next.

Their job has been made more difficult by the breakneck speed of events since SSI paused production on September 18 and the business was liquidated five days ago, putting 1,700 people out of work. That has left them with very little time to get a grasp on all of the options at their disposal and to calculate which will yield the highest return.

The major drawback of keeping the coke ovens alight is that they are loss-making. Coke prices have plummeted this year as there is a glut on the international market because China’s economic slowdown means it is burning smaller quantities of the solid fuel to make steel and exporting what it doesn’t need.

The Redcar ovens - which workers say have at least 25 years of life left in them - are capable of producing a million tonnes of coke a year, which costs about $100m per annum in fuel alone to run.

If the receiver decides to keep the ovens going even in their loss-making state it would suggest they have a long-term plan to market the site as a combined blast furnace/coke battery operation. They could choose to let the coke ovens collapse, putting them permanently out of action, and try to sell the blast furnace on its own, but that would limit its appeal to potential owners.

If the receiver does not want to run a sale for the site – and current market conditions would make it very difficult to find a buyer – then it will probably result in the death of steelmaking on Teesside.

In the meantime, campaigners are refusing to give up hope.

A petition on the official Parliament page calling for steelmaking to be kept on Teesside has secured more than 20,000 signatures, meaning the Government must now respond.

Any petition topping 100,000 signatures prompts a debate in the House.

To add your name to the campaign visit https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/109039