Ironmaking at Port Talbot, the United Kingdom's largest steelworks, came to an end in September 2024 with the closure of the site's last blast furnace. Blast furnace No. 4 was retired on 30 September, following the earlier closure of blast furnace No. 5 in June, and the basic oxygen furnaces were shut down with them, ending more than a century of primary steelmaking at the South Wales plant. The closures were part of Tata Steel's 1.25 billion pound plan to replace the blast furnaces with an electric arc furnace, backed by up to 500 million pounds of UK government support. About half of the plant's jobs were cut in the process. The hot strip mill continues to operate, rolling steel slab while the new furnace is built, and the site will in future make steel by melting scrap sourced in the UK rather than by smelting iron ore.
Source: Global Energy Monitor — https://www.gem.wiki/Tata_Steel_Port_Talbot_steel_plant
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