Huw ThomasBusiness correspondent, Wales
A year after Tata Steel turned off the blast furnaces in Port Talbot, work is well under way to create the future of steelmaking on the site.
Project manager Peter Jones said the company was “hellbent” on delivering the promise of greener steelmaking in south Wales.
Production ended 12 months ago with 2,000 workers made redundant after the company said its blast furnace operation was losing £1m a day.
But 400,000 tonnes of material has now been cleared from the site, and up to 1,200 workers will help in constructing a new £1.25bn electric arc furnace which will melt scrap steel.
Any notion that Port Talbot would soon be forgotten when the blast furnaces were switched off is quickly dismissed by Mr Jones, who said the heritage of steelmaking in the town was significant to everyone on the project.
“I ran this plant and I ran the blast furnaces years ago,” he said.
“It is important to me, but it is also important to everybody here that we move on now, and we actually start to build the future.
“And that is how everybody who is working on the project perceives it.”
The two highly-polluting blast furnaces used intense heat to turn ingredients including iron ore into liquid iron.
This was then processed at other parts of the site to become steel for a variety of uses.
Steel is still produced at the works, but the process now relies on imported slabs of steel which are milled on site.
The source of steel will eventually transition to the new EAF when it begins melting scrap metal at the end of 2027.
Mr Jones said there were “millions and millions of pounds’ worth” of equipment already ordered ahead of work to build the EAF.
He said there were currently about 350 people on site, and a further 200 within Tata Steel UK involved in the project.
Construction roles will rise to between 1,000 and 1,200 as work ramps up.
It will involve repurposing part of an existing building and constructing new ones alongside it.
An on-site lagoon will also be partially-filled to construct an access road for scrap-carrying trucks to reach the new furnace.
While the old blast furnace structures are still standing, the area where the electric arc furnace will stand is being cleared ahead of construction.
Carys Jenkins is managing the construction of several new cranes, which will carry heavy loads weighing hundreds of tonnes as part of the EAF’s operations.
“It’s a really exciting time,” she said.
“I was involved in some of the decommissioning of the plants and it has been a difficult period, but this next period in front of us is so exciting and I think it will be brilliant for the community.”
Local contractors have won work in clearing the site and more opportunities are expected as the project grows.
Ms Jenkins added: “We are really heading for an exciting time for Port Talbot’s future, and obviously at the end of it we will still be steelmaking in Port Talbot which is an excellent new chapter for the place.”
Local businesses that are hoping to be part of Tata Steel’s future in Port Talbot include Runtech, a family-run company that was established to support then-owners of the steelworks, British Steel, in 1996.
“Around the steel industry there has unfortunately been an air of uncertainty for quite some time, but it has proven to be very resilient,” said Runtech head of operations Joe Roderick.
The firm employs around 400 people, having grown from its south Wales base to support the steel industry across the UK with services including haulage, high-pressure cleaning and management support.
“There has been quite a significant impact for Runtech since the blast furnaces closed,” Mr Roderick said.
“Luckily we were able to reallocate those people to other opportunities that came around within the site here in Port Talbot.”
The impact has been felt by many in the town.
Having grown up in Port Talbot, Dan Morgan wanted to offer work to some of those made redundant.
Two years ago, he established South Wales Water, which is a contractor for the water utilities industry across the UK.
He applied to the Tata Steel transition board, which had £100m of funds to help with the reskilling an re-employment of Tata workers.
The money has allowed him to bring in 12 employees who were either directly employed by Tata or were within the supply chain.
“A number of generations of my family worked in the steelworks, my uncles and my grandfather,” he added.
“There is no getting away from it, it has been tough for the community. But it is a resilient community, it is full of great people.”
