British Steel appointed a new interim leadership team as the U.K. government said it had secured sufficient coal and iron ore needed to keep the country’s last primary steel manufacturer running.

Allan Bell was named the company’s new interim chief executive officer, with Lisa Coulson installed as interim chief commercial officer, British Steel said in a statement on April 14. The appointments of long-term employees who have worked at the company’s Scunthorpe plant for 14 and 19 years respectively were signed off by Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.

The move comes two days after the U.K. government legislated to take control of the steelmaker from its Chinese owner Jingye Group in a bid to save the Scunthorpe site, home to Britain’s last-remaining blast furnaces that make steel from raw materials. On April 14, the government said it had secured enough iron ore and coking coal to keep the plant operational, a day after Reynolds had cast doubt on its ability to do so.

Ministers see protecting the plant as important to Britain’s economic security, and if it closed, it would leave the U.K. as the only Group of Seven country unable to produce virgin steel. 

“Our sole focus is ensuring a secure and sustainable future for British Steel’s production in Scunthorpe,” Bell said in the statement. “Our immediate priorities are securing the raw materials we need to continue blast furnace operations, ensuring we have the dedicated personnel to run those furnaces, and maintaining the highest levels of health and safety for our workforce.”

Government officials are working with British Steel’s management to make sure suppliers and workers are paid. Two ships docked at the port of Immingham have the necessary coal and ore to supply Scunthorpe, and a third ship off the coast of Africa is on its way with more materials, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman, Dave Pares, told reporters in London on April 14. “We are now confident of that supply,” he said.

That marks a change from April 13, when Reynolds refused to confirm whether the government could secure those materials in time. A day earlier, Parliament was recalled from its Easter recess to pass an emergency bill, after talks with Jingye broke down, and the business secretary concluded the company planned to precipitate the closing of Scunthorpe by refusing to order the necessary coal and ore. Conservative Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith said the government has “acted too late.”

British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant in northern England is the last in the country able to produce virgin steel, which is vital for the construction of buildings and rail tracks. 

Reynolds said that while the government would prefer to find a private sector partner for the business, a full nationalization of British Steel is still “the likely option.” He said that British Steel had made a £233 million ($304 million) loss in its latest accounts. Reynolds said the government will take a more skeptical approach to future Chinese investment in sensitive areas of the economy, adding, “I wouldn’t personally bring a Chinese company into our steel sector.”

“Steel is vital for our national security and our ambitious plans for the housing, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in the U.K.,” Reynolds said in a statement April 14. “We will set out a long-term plan to co-invest with the private sector to ensure steel in the U.K. has a bright and sustainable future.”

The government’s fallout with Jingye follows other high-profile examples of the U.K. retreating from allowing Chinese firms to work in strategic parts of the economy. In 2022, the then-Conservative government announced it was buying out China General Nuclear Power Corp.’s investment in the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, while the U.K. also in recent years excluded Huawei Technologies Co. from supplying next-generation technology to Britain’s 5G wireless networks.