GB Railfreight has signed an 11-year contract with 7 Steel UK, securing inbound scrap and outbound finished steel traffic at the steelmaker's Cardiff operations and locking rail into both ends of the plant's supply chain for over a decade.

Services under the expanded agreement start this month. GBRf will haul scrap steel into 7 Steel UK's Cardiff facilities and move finished products to customers across the UK, while also expanding the on-site shunting work it already performs for the steelmaker.

The operator is backing the deal with new rolling stock. Two sets of purpose-built scrap wagons enter service during 2027, and an additional set of modified wagons will handle outbound rebar and coiled steel.

"This agreement is a significant milestone for GB Railfreight and we're proud to be expanding our relationship with 7 Steel UK," said GBRf Commercial Director Alex Kirk. "The contract provides a strong foundation for future growth and demonstrates the important role rail freight continues to play in supporting UK industry."

Why the long tenure matters

An 11-year commitment is rare in UK rail freight, where contracts often run shorter and volume risk sits with the operator. For GBRf, the term underwrites the wagon investment scheduled for 2027 and stabilises a traffic base at a site where it has worked for years.

For 7 Steel UK, the deal secures guaranteed haulage capacity for both raw material intake and product distribution at a time when scrap logistics are becoming central to its production model.

What sits behind the Cardiff relationship?

GBRf's presence at the Cardiff works predates 7 Steel UK itself. In 2021 it signed a 12-year contract with then-owner Celsa Steel UK covering mainline haulage and internal shunting, building on a relationship that had already lasted roughly a decade.

Celsa Steel UK was acquired by Sev.en Global Investments in 2025 and rebranded as 7 Steel UK. The new agreement extends and deepens the original scope.

How big is the scrap opportunity?

The numbers explain the strategic logic. The Cardiff plant is already one of the UK's largest electric arc furnace steelmaking sites, with annual capacity of 1.2 million tonnes, according to the government's Steel Strategy published earlier this year. The same document notes that 7 Steel uses 98% scrap in its steel products.

Electric arc furnaces melt scrap steel rather than relying primarily on iron ore and coking coal, so every tonne of EAF capacity translates directly into scrap transport demand.

The UK trajectory points sharply upward. The Steel Strategy estimates British steelmakers currently consume around 2.2 million tonnes of scrap a year, but demand could reach 6.7 million tonnes by 2040 as new EAF capacity comes online. That tripling of scrap consumption would create substantially larger domestic scrap flows to steelworks — flows that are natural rail freight, given the density and bulk of the commodity.

What does this mean for the wider market?

For GBRf, Cardiff becomes a long-tenured anchor customer in an industrial segment where rail's share is structurally advantaged. Scrap moves in bulk, on repeat cycles, between fixed points — conditions that favour rail over road on cost and emissions.

For competitors, the deal removes one of the UK's largest EAF-linked scrap flows from the addressable market for the next decade. As other UK steelmakers shift from blast furnaces to EAFs under the government's strategy, remaining scrap contracts will become contested assets.

For shippers and forwarders handling steel products, the expanded outbound wagon sets for rebar and coiled steel signal growing rail capacity for finished steel distribution across the UK from 2027.

The Cardiff agreement positions GBRf to capture a share of the projected rise in UK scrap demand toward 6.7 million tonnes by 2040, as EAF conversion reshapes both the steel industry and the freight flows that feed it.