Concern over future of Tata plant following furnace closure in Port Talbot
A Plaid Cymru MS has expressed concern about the impact the closure of Port Talbot’s blast furnaces could have on Tata’s Shotton plant.
The last blast furnace at the Port Talbot steelworks was shut down on Monday leaving it unable to make its own steel.
Nearly 2,000 jobs will be lost at the plant as blast furnace number four ceases production. The site will enter a transition phase until 2027 when steelmaking will resume using a £1.25 billion electric arc furnace.
Steel coils
The Shotton plant on Deeside employs more than 700 workers and is reliant on coils of steel from Port Talbot but as it can no longer produce virgin steel, this will have to sourced from elsewhere.
Llyr Gruffydd, who represents north Wales in the Senedd, said: “The impact of the closure of the Port Talbot blast furnaces is also felt here on Deeside, which is reliant on high-quality steel to produce specialist coated products. There are other sources for the steel within Tata – for example its plant in the Netherlands – but it’s important that the quality is maintained.
“The quality is an issue for the new proposed Electric Arc furnace that is meant to be built in Port Talbot. There is talk of them having a Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) facility to enable them to produce high-quality products but it’s important that the company delivers on that so that the future of Shotton is assured well into the future.”
‘Transition’
He added: “There has been a shocking lack of long-term planning in the need to transition to a greener way to produce steel and I – and my colleagues in Plaid Cymru – are determined to ensure that Wales continues to be a steel-making country with the high-quality jobs that entails.
“We will continue to press the UK and Welsh Governments to make sure that is the case going forwards.”
Just last year Tata Steel invested £3m at the Shotton plant to upgrade its colour coating paint process in a bid to improve quality and make cost savings by reducing paint use by 650,000 litres a year.
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Ah the faux outrage and crocodile tears of the eco-loons. This is what the Plaid lot have been advocating for years. They’re Net Zero ideologues who promised ‘green’ energy that’s cheap and abundant – it’s neither – and ‘green’ jobs, which haven’t materialised. I do wonder when the penny will drop that this is all pie in the sky.
470 plants in China using blast furnaces.
Tata commissioning a new large blast furnace in India. Will plaid provide our winter fuel allowances
Blast furnace 4 was about 13 years old. It was not past its economic life span. Number 5 was totally rebuilt after the explosion in November 2001 that lifted it off its foundations, these were young compared with the old four and five,. These machine were designed to be maintained not thrown away. Why did the government swallow this rubbish. How about boycotting TaTa products , start with Tetley tea bags , let them rot on shop shelves. Jaguar Land Rover is also another of theirs They have abuse the BSPS pensioners by being allowed to get out of their… Read more »
The politicians sold the steelworks out, there can be little doubt of that. Proof is simply found, if as argued by Tata that the blast furnace were losing a £1m a day why are they now investing in a new blast furnace in India. The cost they mentioned were more likely to relate to the pay disparity between native workers and UK. Pennies to pounds! Along with a running cost for electricity and water at the highest in Europe. So good bye Steel as we know it as the future is anything but rosy!!!!