Tata Steel Agrees To Keep Production Going At Port Talbot For Next 5 Years
Company guarantees minimum 5-year commitment to two blast furnaces at the site.
Tata Steel U.K. on Wednesday reached an agreement with trade unions to keep production going at the Port Talbot plan in Wales and other steelworks in the U.K. for at least five years, the company said in a media statement.
The Indian steel giant offered a number of guarantees to its staff at Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales, the U.K.'s largest steel plant, including a minimum five-year guarantee to keep both furnaces operational at the site.
In return Tata wants to close employees’ costly final salary pension scheme to future accruals and replace it with a defined contribution scheme. Unions will ballot on the plan in January next year.
The company will also continue to invest in its U.K. business to enhance the competitive position of Tata Steel U.K. in the European steel industry.
“The delivery of Tata Steel U.K.’s transformation plan and generation of free cash flows will be the key enabler for the future sustainability of the business and we are very encouraged by the early signs of the delivery of the plan. There is much more work to be done to make Tata Steel U.K. more financially sustainable, but I am confident that all stakeholders will do all they can to try to ensure that the company will be able to achieve its plan in the coming months and years,” Koushik Chatterjee, group executive director of Tata Steel and executive director for its European business said in the media statement.
Earlier this year, Tata Steel had announced that all of its plants across the U.K. would be put for sale. But in July the sale came to a halt.
Last month the firm signed a "letter of intent" with UK-based Liberty House Group to enter into exclusive negotiations for the potential sale of its Speciality Steels business for an enterprise value of 100 million pounds.
