Tata Steel Port Talbot steel plant

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Tata Steel Port Talbot steel plant, also known as Port Talbot steelworks, is a steel plant in Port Talbot, Wales, United Kingdom that operates blast furnace (BF), basic oxygen furnace (BOF), and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology.

Location

The map below shows the exact location of the plant in Port Talbot, Wales, United Kingdom:

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• Location: Tata Steel Strip Products UK, Port Talbot Works, PO Box 42, Port Talbot, South Wales SA13 2NG, United Kingdom
• Coordinates (WGS 84): 51.577368, -3.783013 (exact)

Background

In January 2020, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Sons group that owns the Port Talbot plant, said the plant needs to be "self-sustaining." Tata Steel's 2017-2018 pre-tax losses were £371 million, up from £222 million in 2017-18. A planned merger between Tata and German steel company ThyssenKrupp was blocked by the European Commission over competition concerns in June 2019. In 2021, Port Talbot reported a £347 million loss despite £1 billion in equity to support the company, stating costs increased due partly to Brexit; it also cut employees by about 400.

Tata Steel plans to install emissions reduction technologies on the Port Talbot blast furnaces and to continue operating them without plans to transition to electric arc furnace (EAF) production. The company claims that the process of constructing EAFs and decommissioning BFs would cost approximately USD $3 billion.

History

Port Talbot works

The original works were built by Gilbertson, and situated south of Port Talbot railway station. Constructed in 1901–5, the works was named after Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot of Margam Castle, the principal sponsor of the developments at Port Talbot docks, which had opened in 1837. The site was closed in 1961 and demolished in 1963. The General Offices housed Port Talbot magistrates' court until 2012, but the rest of the site is an industrial estate.

Margam works

Steelmaking at the Port Talbot complex began with the Margam Iron and Steel Works, completed between 1923 and 1926.

Abbey works

Abbey Steelworks was planned in 1947 and is believed to be named after the Cistercian Margam Abbey that used to be on the site – a small amount of the original building still stands (protected) within the site that survived the dissolution of the monasteries. Several steel manufacturers in South Wales pooled their resources to form the Steel Company of Wales, to construct a modern integrated steelworks on a site then owned by Guest, Keen and Baldwins (GKN). However, political manoeuvring led to tinplate production being retained in its original heartland further west, at two new works in Trostre and Felindre. Opened in 1951, it was fully operational by 1953.

Once the new No.4 and 5 furnaces began production, the older furnaces (No. 1 and 2) built in the 1920s, were demolished. No.3 furnace, built in 1941, was retained as a stand-by, where it stood disused until demolished in the mid-2000s.

Divestment

Tata Steel announced on March 30, 2016 it is to pull out of its UK operations, including Port Talbot. It provided as reasons "imports of Chinese steel, high energy costs and weak demand ". Plans to save the steelworks were put on hold when potential buyers indicated their intention to withdraw from the bidding process due to the UK voting in favor of withdrawing from the EU. Port Talbot cut around 1,050 jobs that year.

Environmental Compliance

Tata Steel plans to install emissions reduction technologies on blast furnaces and continue operating them, indicating that they are not planning a transition to EAF from BF-BOF. Tata sites that constructing EAFs and decommissioning BFs would cost approximately 3 billion USD.

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Plant Details

Table 1: General Plant Details

Start date	Workforce size	Power source
1905	3500	new grid to be built by National Grid by end of 2027

Table 2: Ownership and Parent Company Information

State-owned entity status	Parent company	Parent company PermID	Parent company GEM ID	Owner	Owner company PermID	Owner company GEM ID
Partial	T Steel Holdings Pte Ltd; Tata Steel Ltd	5036715647; 4295872420	E100001016146; E100001010018	Tata Steel UK Ltd	4296714310	E100001010180

Table 3: Process and Products

Steel product category	Steel products	Steel sector end users	Main production equipment
semi-finished, finished rolled	galvanized, cold rolled, coil, hot rolled, slab	automotive, building and infrastructure, steel packaging	BF; BOF; EAF

Table 4: Plant-level Crude Steel Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

¹Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Capacity operating status1	Basic oxygen furnace steelmaking capacity	Electric arc furnace steelmaking capacity	Nominal crude steel capacity (total)
announced	–	3200	3200
retired	5000	–	5000

Table 5: Plant-level Crude Iron Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

¹Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Capacity operating status1	Blast furnace capacity	Nominal iron capacity (total)
retired	4770	4770

Table 6: Upstream Products Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

Sinter	Pellets
>0	NF

Table 7: Actual Plant-level Crude Steel Production by Year (thousand tonnes per annum)

Year	BOF production	Other/unknown steel production
2019	unknown	unknown
2020	unknown	unknown
2021	unknown	unknown
2022	unknown	unknown
2023	unknown	unknown

Table 8: Actual Plant-level Crude Iron Production by Year (thousand tonnes per annum)

Year	BF production	Other/unknown iron production
2019	unknown	unknown
2020	unknown	unknown
2021	unknown	unknown
2022	unknown	unknown
2023	unknown	unknown

Unit Details

Table 9: Blast Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Start date	Retired date	Furnace manufacturer and model	Current size	Current capacity (ttpa)	Decarbonization technology	Most recent relining
BF 4	retired	1992	2024-09-30	Primetals Technologies; Siemens VAI	2388.0 m3	2580	3D scanning technology was installed on the furnace in 2021 to reduce the amount of coke needed for production	2013-02
BF 5	retired	2002	2024-06	Primetals Technologies; Saint-Gobain (parts)	2134.0 m3	2190	Tata is installing Topscan technology on BF 5, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 50,000 tons per year	2019-01-19

Table 10: Electric Arc Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Announced date	Construction date	Start date	Furnace manufacturer and model	Current capacity (ttpa)	Current size (tonnes)
unknown EAF (1)	announced	2023	2025-08	2027	Tenova Consteel	3200	450.0

Table 11: Electric Arc Furnace Feedstock Details

Unit name	Scrap-based	% scrap
unknown EAF (1)	yes	100.00

Table 12: Basic Oxygen Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Retired date	Current capacity (ttpa)
unknown BOF (1)	retired	2024	2500
unknown BOF (2)	retired	2024	2500

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of steel power plants, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Iron and Steel Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.

Resources

• Company website
• Wikipedia