The workers, managers, suppliers and customers who rely on British steel mills operated by India’s Tata Steel in the United Kingdom continue to remain uncertain about the future of those facilities.
Throughout much of early 2016 it looked like the mills in Wales and England in the U.K. were headed for permanent closure.
Then in May 2016, a bidding process for the mills prompted some optimism, including competing bids by two U.K.-based investment groups for the complex in Port Talbot, Wales.
On July 8, 2016, however, a press release issued from Tata Steel Ltd. world headquarters in Mumbai states that although those bids have “been carefully considered,” the organization also has “entered into discussions with strategic players in the steel industry, including [Essen, Germany-based] ThyssenKrupp AG.”
Those talks appear to be centered on the integrated steelmaking and strip steel production facility in Port Talbot. “A potential strategic combination of strip products businesses offers the best prospects to create a premium, world-class strip steel business,” says Koushik Chatterjee, Tata’s executive director for Europe.
Chatterjee also says, “We will now also begin separate processes for the potential sale of the South Yorkshire-based Specialty Steels business and the Hartlepool pipe mills (other than the 20-inch tube mill) in the U.K. Tata Steel has already received interest from several bidders for Specialty Steels and the pipe mills in each case, and a formal process will be commencing shortly.”