Tata Steel aims to complete decarbonisation at UK plant in next 3 yrs: CEO

Tata Steel aims to complete decarbonisation journey at its plant in the UK in next three years, the company's CEO T V Narendran said.

As part of its decarbonisation plan, the company will shift to low-emission electric arc furnace (EAF) process from the blast furnace (BF) route which is nearing the end of life in the next couple of months.

India-headquartered Tata Steel owns the UK's largest steelworks of 3 million tonne per annum (MTPA) at Port Talbot in South Wales and employs around 8,000 people across all its operations in that country.

"Consultation process with the unions is going. We also need a number of (other) permissions. Some of the infrastructure needs to be upgraded. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. It has already started. We are hoping that in the next three years we should complete the entire journey," Narendran told PTI.

He made the remarks in reply to a question about the timeline for the company's decarbonisation plan, which Narendran had earlier said was not possible without a financial support from the UK government.

Replying to another question, Narendran, who is also the company's MD, said his company is engaged with a few European suppliers to source the new plant machinery.

It will largely be from European suppliers because technically most of the capital equipment suppliers are either in Europe or in Japan or Korea but this will largely be from Europe, he said.

Tata Steel and the UK government recently agreed on a joint investment plan of 1.25 billion pounds to execute decarbonisation plans at Port Talbot steel making facility in Britain.

Narendran further said of the 1.25 billion pounds, 500 million pounds is going to come from the UK government.

He said it's a milestone funding that we will get (from the UK government). The rest will come partly from internal resources as well as through borrowing.

There are no plans to increase the capacity of the plant, he added.