Inside Port Talbot's steelworks as blast furnace era draws to a close

  • ITV Wales journalist Carole Green reports

"There's been iron making on this site since monastic times and there's always been change."

Steelmaker Graham Rowland's life, and Tata's plant at Port Talbot, are about to undergo unprecedented change as the first of the two mighty blast furnaces are switched off.

It's the beginning of the end of primary steel making in the UK.

It’s the end of an era for Port Talbot - and for Graham, too. He has worked here for 42 years and in his spare time has documented the various chapters of steel making in his hometown over hundreds of years.

With producer Sofia Lewis and camera operator Trevor Davies, I filmed on site for the very last time in its current configuration.

It's the hottest day of the year so far, and we are fully kitted out in PPE: two pairs of trousers, three top layers, helmet, long socks, safety boots, glasses and gloves.

I find it almost impossible to walk, and have extra respect for the 4,000-strong workforce here who put a shift in every day.

Trevor filming within Blast Furnace 5 in the final days before it is wound down and the final molten iron is produced.

Graham, like many steelmakers, started working alongside his father. Steel is in Graham's blood. He proudly tells us his body is covered in tattoos of the works.

He says while he feels privileged to have spent his whole working life here, he will be sorry to go in these circumstances.

Graham will be made redundant as around 1900 people are expected to lose their jobs at the site in Port Talbot. There are 2500 job losses predicted in total across the UK over the next 12 months, followed by another 300 in the next three years.

As this blast furnace era draws to a close, another will begin with the switch to an electric arc furnace.

Graham, who has worked here for 42 years, has been working on preserving the history of the steelworks on display boards within the plant.

It's a fundamental shift in technology from virgin steelmaking, to producing steel from recycled metal.

Tata says it is greener, it will cut emissions and it is the future.

But now is a time for reflection.

When Graham started work, there were 18,000 workers in this plant. He says numbers have been dropping ever since.

Putting on a brave face, he says: "That's progression and you just have to accept it."

  • Ahead of the first of Port Talbot's two blast furnaces shutting down, ITV Cymru Wales was given access inside the Tata steelworks. Carole Green has been speaking to one of the steelworkers who has been preserving the plant's history.

Not everyone has accepted the speed of the transition here.

The unions put forward a proposal for a slower transition. They argued to keep one blast furnace open - number 4, which still has nine years of life in it - while a new arc is built.

It would have given the workforce, and the community which depends on the plant, a chance to catch their breath and retrain.

It would also have avoided thousands of workers entering the local job market all at the same time.

However, as our guide from Tata for the day explained, it is logistically impossible to keep one blast running and build an arc furnace at the same time.

He said it would take twice as long, cost twice as much and the company has ruled it out.

We head from the high-tech control room, with cameras trained on blast furnaces 4 and 5, to the iron-making plant.

The first blast furnace is expected to finish producing iron this week, with the second to follow in September.

Visually, it's basic and spectacular like the best bonfire night fireworks I've ever seen spewing out of a glowing cave.

We watch Blast Furnace No. 5 being "tapped off". It's a highly controlled and regulated environment but it looks incredible.

Iron and steel has been made in this way at Port Talbot for more than 70 years, but its days are now over.

We watch the cauldron ablaze, as the iron is made into steel. The light from the molten metal floods the dark furnace with an orange glow. The heat from this process of Basic Oxygen Steelmaking is intense as temperatures can reach 1,700C.

It is like a vision of Dante's Inferno, but perhaps the best description is from the workers themselves, who refer to this part of the plant as the Eye of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings.

We see the area where the new electric arc furnace will be built in a £1.25billion investment over the next three years.

The company is keen to emphasise that something radical had to be done.

Workers call this part of the plant as the Eye of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings. It is a form of steelmaking that will cease at the plant.

Tata says this plant has been losing a million pounds a day for years and the arc will guarantee a future for steel here - just a different one.

Steelmaking is not ending, it's just changing.

If your job, or even your identity, is the price of that change, though, it can be very hard to accept, especially for younger workers with families and mortgages, or older workers who haven't known anything else.

I ask Graham how he will move on.

He says he is planning to retire to Spain for the warmer weather and a fresh start.

As we chat, a loud rumble clatters above our heads. Without missing a beat, Graham recognises it instantly.

It's the sample lines going down to the laboratory for analysis, he tells me. It has been the constant soundtrack to Graham's working life.

A new chapter now awaits him, this plant and this town built on steel. There's sadness and uncertainty here, but also some hope of what's yet to come.

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