The largest integrated plant in the UK is made up of three historic plants - Port Talbot works, Margam works and Abbey works.
Port Talbot works were founded in 1902 by the family of industrialist Gilbertson and originally only remelted imported pig iron from other ironworks in Wales. Between 1908-1914 new open-hearth steel and two rolling mills were built.
In 1917 another plant was established on the coast - Margam works with two blast furnaces, coke plant and open-hearth steel making shop. In 1941 blast furnace no.3 was put into operation.
In the 40´s a brand new integrated plant (Abbey works) was built south from the Margam works. In 1951 a state-of-the-art hot strip mill was put into operation there followed by modern open-hearth plant with eight 220 t furnaces. Blast furnace no.4 and no.5 were constructed between 1956 - 1959.
In 1967 the works were united and became part of the British Steel Corporation.
New oxygen steel plant with two 300 t LD converters replaced the original open-hearth plant in 1969.
The merger of British Steel Corp. and the dutch Koninklijke Hoogovens in 1999 formed a new company called Corus.
Since 2007 Port Talbot works are part of the Indian Tata Steel.
Keywords: port talbot, united kingdom, steelworks, tata steel, corus, british steel, integrated plant, industrial photography, industriekultur, industrialni fotograf, landscape, settlement, 2019
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