‘The line’s running half-empty’: Llanwern steelworks feels the heat from cheap steel imports

Подробности

A worker at Tata Steel’s factory in Llanwern. Photograph: David Levenson/Alamy View image in fullscreen A worker at Tata Steel’s factory in Llanwern. Photograph: David Levenson/Alamy Steel industry ‘The line’s running half-empty’: Llanwern steelworks feels the heat from cheap steel imports New quotas to protect UK firms and jobs appear to be having opposite effect in products such as galvanised steel

Prefer the Guardian on Google At Tata Steel’s factory in Llanwern, south Wales , production lines that should be running full-time are now falling quiet for parts of the day, with workers being put on to maintenance and cleaning work while machines sit idle.

There aren’t enough orders to keep them running all the time, the company says, because of a surge of cheap steel coming from Asian countries that is threatening the viability of several UK sites that make similar products, and risk hundreds of jobs.

“The line has been left running half empty, and the result of that is it won’t last very long unless we can find a solution here,” said one insider.

New 50% import tariffs introduced by the government in July were designed to protect against cheap steel from countries including China and India from undercutting UK producers such as Tata.