Tata Steel announced today that it is to invest £2.4m in improving the competitiveness of the site and generate over 1MW of energy per year through the application of renewable energy innovations.
The new investment at the Port Talbot steelworks is also set to reduce CO2 emissions by 6,000 tonnes per year as Tata Steel plan to capture and recycle energy from the Continuous Annealing Process Line (CAPL).
The CAPL waste heat recovery project will generate steam and make use of a turbine being installed as part of Port Talbot’s £53 million Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) Plant Evaporative Cooling Scheme, which was announced in March this year.
Tata Steel has announced that the work on the CAPL line, which was built in 1999, is due to be carried out between July and December 2012. This is so that it coincides with the BOS plant project, as well as with the £185m rebuild of Port Talbot’s blast furnace number four, announced in August 2010.
Port Talbot hub director Jon Ferriman said: “Times are very tough in the steel industry at the moment. However, we are committed to our capital expenditure programme in order to further improve the competitiveness of Welsh steelmaking.”
Mr Ferriman added: “By increasing our power generating capacity we are improving our energy efficiency and there is also a significant indirect impact on carbon dioxide emissions.”
A spokesperson for Tata Steel has said that the move represents a vital contribution towards the sustainability of the site – and the steel industry in Wales.
Tom Moore
