 "Green shoots as Tata Steel's UK pension drama ends")
By Eddie Spence
Tata Steel canceled a press conference where the firm was expected to announce the shuttering of blast furnaces at its UK steel plant alongside thousands of job cuts.
The Indian company was due to hold a press conference after its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, but canceled it on short notice for “unavoidable reasons,” according to a spokesperson.
People familiar with the matter had said the firm was set to announce the restructuring of its operations at the Port Talbot site in south Wales.
The company reached a deal earlier this year with the UK government for £500 million ($607 million) in funding to move to electric arc furnace production at the site. The change is expected to lead to around 3,000 job cuts, according to one of the people, as EAFs are less labor intensive.
The change leaves the fate of the Port Talbot plant in doubt following months of uncertainty for its workforce. Tata’s UK operations have struggled for years to turn a profit in the brutally low margin steelmaking industry.
