Port Talbot electric arc furnace by Tata Steel UK: status and timeline

Port Talbot electric arc furnace

Restart steelmaking at the UK's largest steelworks with about 90% lower direct CO2, using domestic scrap and £500M of public money.

ProtoStage 2 of 5

Under construction since July 2025; start-up slipped to late 2028 or early 2029 on grid delays.

Updated 19d agoChecked 11 Oct0 updates this week

Milestones

Next · Furnace commissioning

Grid connection agreement with National Grid ESOMay 2024Complete.
£500M UK grant funding agreement signed11 Sep 2024Complete.
Last blast furnace (No. 4) shut down30 Sep 2024Complete.
Planning approval from Neath Port Talbot councilFeb 2025Complete.
Construction starts14 Jul 2025Complete.
Furnace commissioningTarget Q4 2028+12 mo~~originally Q4 2027~~Current milestone.

Most important updates

Upcoming

Q4 2028Furnace commissioning+12 mo~~originally Q4 2027~~ (next)

Current obstacles

Waiting on the gridThe new high-voltage connection the furnace depends on is late, pushing start-up back by about a year.
Rising costThe delay raises project costs; Tata has asked the UK government for extra support beyond the £500M grant.

Physics limits

Scrap carries its impuritiesCopper and tin from wiring and coatings dissolve into molten steel and can't be refined out, so scrap-only steel struggles to meet the purest grades without adding fresh iron.
Not enough scrap for all steelScrap supply is limited by how much steel reached end of life decades ago, so recycling alone can't meet total demand; new iron is still needed.
Clean only as the gridMelting steel with electricity takes a lot of power per tonne, so an arc furnace's true emissions depend on how the grid's electricity is generated.

How it works

3 parts

Arc

Electric arcs melt the scrap

Graphite electrodes carry huge currents into a charge of scrap; the arcs reach several thousand degrees and melt it in well under an hour.

Refining

Ladle furnaces fine-tune it

Two new ladle furnaces adjust temperature and add alloys so the molten steel hits each customer's chemistry before casting.

Supply

UK scrap as the raw material

The furnace runs on scrap steel collected in the UK, so the site no longer needs imported iron ore or coking coal.

Spec sheet

Spec	Port Talbot electric arc furnace
Steel capacity	3.2 Mt/yr^R (reported)
Project cost	£1.25B^R (reported)
UK government grant	£500M^R (reported)
Tapping cycle	320 t every 42 min^R (reported)
Cut in Port Talbot CO2	About 90%^R (reported)
Cut in UK industrial CO2	About 8%^R (reported)

^R reported by the company

Update log

4 updates

About Tata Steel UK

The team behind Port Talbot electric arc furnace

Tata Steel UK

Port Talbot electric arc furnace, UK steel

The UK arm of India's Tata Steel and Britain's largest steelmaker. It shut its Port Talbot blast furnaces in 2024 and is building a £1.25B electric arc furnace there that will melt UK scrap instead of making iron from ore and coal.

Building a 3.2 Mt/yr electric arc furnace at Port Talbot: £1.25B, of which £500M is a UK government grant.
Grid connection delays pushed start-up from early 2028 to late 2028 or early 2029 (Sep 2026); the original target was end-2027.
Has asked the UK government for more money; reports put the request in the hundreds of millions of pounds.

tatasteeluk.com (opens tatasteeluk.com)Company profile →

Headquarters: United Kingdom
Status: Subsidiaryof Tata Steel
Valuation: Tata Steel-owned
Works in: MaterialsGreen steel
Coverage: 1 program · 4 updateslatest 19d agochecked 11 Oct
Investors: UK Government (opens tatasteeluk.com)
Suppliers: Tenova (opens letsrecycle.com)National Grid (opens themachinemaker.com)
People: Rajesh Nair (opens tatasteeluk.com)CEO, Tata Steel UKT. V. Narendran (opens en.wikipedia.org)CEO & Managing Director, Tata Steel (parent)

Spec

Port Talbot electric arc furnace

Steel capacity

3.2 Mt/yr^R (reported)

Project cost

£1.25B^R (reported)

UK government grant

£500M^R (reported)

Tapping cycle

320 t every 42 min^R (reported)

Cut in Port Talbot CO2

About 90%^R (reported)

Cut in UK industrial CO2

About 8%^R (reported)

Port Talbot electric arc furnace

Milestones

Most important updates

Upcoming

Current obstacles

Physics limits

How it works

Electric arcs melt the scrap

Ladle furnaces fine-tune it

UK scrap as the raw material

Spec sheet

Update log

Tue 22 Sep

Mon 14 Jul 2025

Mon 30 Sep 2024

Wed 11 Sep 2024

About Tata Steel UK

Current obstacles

Physics limits

How it works

Electric arcs melt the scrap

Ladle furnaces fine-tune it

UK scrap as the raw material

Spec sheet

Update log

Tue 22 Sep

Mon 14 Jul 2025

Mon 30 Sep 2024

Wed 11 Sep 2024

About Tata Steel UK