British Steel has won a contract to supply around 9,500 tonnes of rail track for Egypt’s Green Line, which will be produced in Scunthorpe.

Once complete, the Green Line will be the country’s first fully electrified mainline and freight network, stretching from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

The network is 660km long and will carry trains – for both passengers and goods – up to a maximum speed of 250km/h (155mph), with British Steel among a number of key suppliers providing rail to the project. Rail supplied is 60E1 in grade R260, each at 18 metres in length.

The multi-million-pound contract could provide a key lifeline for British Steel, which has been struggling to produce affordable steel in recent years due to strong competition from steelmakers in China and elsewhere.

British Steel was founded in 2016 with assets acquired from Tata Steel Europe by Greybull Capital, then acquired by Jingye Group in 2020. In November, it announced plans to close down the blast furnace in its Scunthorpe...