The long tradition of making steel from scratch in Wales is to come to an end, with Tata Steel announcing the closing of the last two blast furnaces at the Port Talbot steelworks by the end of the year. Direct job losses are to amount to 2,500 people over the next 18 months, and 2800 overall, with wider effects on the local community. Tata Steel has said it will offer a £130 million support package to help affected employees retrain and find new roles.

The closures are part of the decision to convert to using electric arc furnaces at the plant, which require less manpower and focus on recycling steel, thus cutting emissions of greenhouse gases – Port Talbot is the UK’s largest single emitter of GHGs, accounting for 1.5% of all emissions within the UK. The conversion to arc furnaces will be funded by the UK government at £500 million and Tata themselves contributing £750 million, which will avert the total closure of the plant, as Tata Steel said was inevitable otherwise. The blast furnace closures put the UK just half a step away from having zero capacity to produce steel from scratch, with British Steel’s two blast furnaces in Scunthorpe the other remaining ones, also planned to be replaced by electric arc furnaces. At that point, the UK will be the only major economy without the ability to produce its own primary steel, although there is a potential that a direct reduced iron plant will be added to Port Talbot.

Reaction to the news has overwhelming been that of regret and sadness. Blame has been placed on the UK’s net-zero targets, but also on Brexit; what is certain is that the long rise of steelmaking in other regions of the world has also contributed.