The New Era of Steelmaking in Port Talbot

[chrisjo]

Quick visit to Margam TC yesterday - never seen it so empty. I was just searching to see when the new electric furnace at Tata is due to be started and came across this, which seems fairly positive?

"In the past three years, quietly but powerfully, a drama has been unfolding—one that will reshape the future of steel production in the United Kingdom. Sitting at the hub of this industrial revolution is the £1.25 billion low-carbon steelmaking development by Tata Steel at Port Talbot, South Wales. Far from just an investment, it marks the start of a new industrial revolution, based not on coal and iron ore, but on renewable energy and UK indigenous scrap."

Building a Green Future: The New Era of Steelmaking in Port Talbot

Tata Steel's £1.25 billion investment is revolutionizing steelmaking at Port Talbot with a new electric arc furnace, renewable energy, and sustainable practices, reshaping the future of British industry.

www.ukmetalsexpo.com

 

[DarloRich]

I was just searching to see when the new electric furnace at Tata is due to be started and came across this, which seems fairly positive?

Positive - but a long way from actually starting production.

 

[zwk500]

Positive - but a long way from actually starting production.

Indeed - the article states the electricity connection for the Electric Arc Furnace won't be ready for a couple of years yet.

Powering this shift to cleaner production is another enormous project: a new National Grid link to support the giant electricity demands of the EAF. This includes building a new substation, laying a two-kilometer buried high-voltage cable, and installing transformers capable of handling 275,000 volts—scaled down to 33,000 volts for plant operations. Completion is scheduled for October 2027.

And presumably it'll take a while after that for production to actually begin.

BBC article from this Feb quotes early 2028 as operational date: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgegrep2xno

 

[Geeves]

70k works out to be about 35 to 40 trains a week if you imagine they are hauling 2000 odd ton each?

 

[ac6000cw]

70k works out to be about 35 to 40 trains a week if you imagine they are hauling 2000 odd ton each?

Yes, but that's only 5 to 7 trains a day (plus probably the same number of empties in the opposite direction).

For comparison, the mostly single-track Felixstowe branch typically handles on a weekday (counting both directions) 40 to 50 intermodal freights plus 36 passenger trains.

 

[Adrian Barr]

Tata have regular updates on their YouTube channel, like the "Steelcast" episode included on that metalsexpo link (and linked below).
These are some videos that talk about the new EAF: https://www.youtube.com/@TataSteelUK/search?query=eaf

Tata Steel UK | SteelCast S3 E36: Step inside Port Talbot's £1.25 billion megaproject

This was my comment on that video from the Rail Freight thread:

The video starts in Margam yard; 66158 nearest the camera (seen departing at 3:25) is most likely on the 6B48 afternoon working to Trostre, which usually has import coils on it from Cardiff or Newport Docks - note the shipping labels on them. A figure of 70,000 tons of scrap per week is mentioned - if that amount arrives by rail, and there were ~1500 tons of scrap on each train, that would amount to something like 7 trains a day, six days a week. Those would replace a similar number of import steel services (slab and coil), but the scrap would be travelling from further afield.

At 6:06 the video moves across to the Peafield (or P. Field as shown on Trackmaps) siding, located between the main area of internal sidings to the south of the steelworks and Port Talbot Grange sidings. Import or Export slab traffic by rail was previously loaded or unloaded from the area of hardstanding to the left, but as mentioned in a previous post, the unloading of import slab now appears to have relocated elsewhere within the works. Trains accessed the Peafield siding with main line traction, but the slab trains now seem to be hauled by Tata internal locos to a different siding accessed from the other end of the works.

As discussed in the video, this Peafield siding will become the offloading point and sorting area for scrap traffic arriving by rail. Scrap traffic is traditionally conveyed in box wagons, but the video talks about the use of "Rotainers" - rotable containers. This is a brand name for a company providing various types of container designed for bulk handling, which can be lifted (e.g. by crane or reach stacker) using a special attachment which rotates the container to empty it, as seen here on the company's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaxS0JVRlBx9E9ti9Omk47w/videos

The rotainer website - https://www.rotainer.com/ - lists a "Scraptainer" which the accompanying picture shows to be a toughened 20ft high cube designed specifically for scrap - the idea of "replaceable wear plates" sounds good considering how much of a battering scrap wagons get in typical use. Maybe we'll see something like this being used (a version which wasn't a high cube would be more suitable for UK routes). Tata have previously used containers for their Hardendale lime and the "tar tanks" to Middlesbrough, so they have some experience of using containers for bulk flows.

I think the positive thing is that although the EAF won't be completed for a couple of years (I think the construction phase of the project starts in July) its got to the stage where contracts are being signed and money is being committed.

70k works out to be about 35 to 40 trains a week if you imagine they are hauling 2000 odd ton each?

The average weight loaded into each scrap train might be less for a couple of reasons - some scrap terminals are restricted in the length of train they can take, and some sources of scrap are surprisingly lightweight - in some cases a wagon may be not much more than half-full by weight despite being physically filled with scrap.

Quick visit to Margam TC yesterday - never seen it so empty.

The majority of sidings are inside the steelworks itself, so the amount of wagons in Margam Yard is not a great guide to how busy the steelworks is (plus if traffic is busy there should generally be more wagons on the the main line and fewer in sidings). Not many views of the steelworks internal sidings, but this is a good one by railphotoanthology from a couple of years ago I think:
https://railphotoanthology.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/6/6/7066978/dji-0069ed_orig.jpg

The closure of the blast furnaces seems to have resulted in greater volumes of rail traffic overall, as imports of raw materials by ship (that never went by rail) had to be replaced by rail movements of imported slab or coil. The main losses have been the Hardendale lime train, the Cwmbargoed coal (which had already ceased by the time the blast furnaces shut), the tar tanks to Middlesbrough, a weekly scrap train from Trostre, and trainloads of processed slag loaded at the Grange sidings for use as aggregate - probably two trains a day on average lost, but replaced with maybe half a dozen movements of imported slab and hot rolled coil, which is then processed and often ends up back on rail once the slabs are hot rolled or the coils are cold rolled.