Hywel Griffith
Wales correspondent, BBC News, in Port Talbot

The rain clouds shrouding the steelworks this afternoon set the tone for a difficult day in Port Talbot.

Everyone here has known this moment was coming - some have been able to plan but others are still uncertain over how the changes will impact their job.

What is clear is that over a century of traditional steelmaking in Port Talbot is ending and little has been put in place over the years to prepare.

South Wales is an area all too familiar with the pains of moving on from heavy industry, as can be seen by the pockets of deprivation that remain in former coalmining communities.

The need to cut carbon emissions has been pressing for a decade and yet work on a so-called “just transition” and what it would mean for workers has only started in recent years.

Many are hoping that the promise of employment in a new, greener economy will come to pass but the truth is those jobs are needed here and now.

Janet Weaver, 59, says the steelworks are all the people of Port Talbot have “ever known”.

Weaver, who has a son in his thirties who has been made redundant by the closure, says she has had "five generations of family in the steelworks", describing the plant as symbolic of the town.

“When you come into Port Talbot in the evenings it lights up the skyline from the motorway,” she says, adding that while pollution has been an issue, the plant has “provided food on the table”.

She adds that she is concerned the area will become a “ghost town” after the closure and feels "there’s not a person in Port Talbot who’s not feeling this pain at the moment".

She adds that her son’s specific qualifications means he will have to move to find the same job.

“People have to leave this town,” she says.

Tata Steel’s chief executive says he is “deeply conscious” of how difficult the closure of the last blast furnace in Port Talbot is.

Rajesh Nair says that during the transition, the company is doing “everything possible to minimise the impact” of the closure, calling today a “significant event in the history of iron and steelmaking in the UK”.

"It is important at this juncture to pause, recognise and credit the huge contribution of the many thousands of people and the technologies that have sustained our industry and communities here for generations,” he adds.

Unite, the union that has represented many of the workers at Port Talbot, calls the closure "industrial vandalism".

Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, criticises the former Conservative government, saying “years of wilful neglect and underinvestment by the previous government has led us to this place”.

She welcomed the new Labour government’s “two-stage commitment to provide investment” for steelmaking in south Wales, but called on it to ensure that jobs are guaranteed.

Image source, M McKeown/Express/Getty

1902: The first steelworks at Port Talbot is founded

1923 & 1952: A second and third works at Port Talbot and nearby Margam works are finished and they employ about 18,000 people

1967: British Steel is formed from 14 different firms as the industry is nationalised

1980: British Steel announces 6,500 job losses with the closure of blast furnaces at Shotton after 78 years and more heavy job losses at Port Talbot and Llanwern

1988: British Steel is privatised and becomes part of Dutch-owned Corus in 1999

2007: Corus bought by Tata Steel of India

2022: Tata warns plants may close without subsidies for reducing carbon emissions

2024: The last remaining blast furnace stops producing steel

Image source, PA Media

A £100m fund has been set up to help workers and companies hit by the changes at the plant.

The first money was released from the pot in August, with £13.5m made available.

Labour's Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said it was "a safety net in place now to ensure we can back workers and businesses, whatever happens".

At the time she also announced that more than 50 businesses had signed a pledge to support anyone forced to leave their steel job.

While the Community union welcomed the swift release of that first tranche of cash, it also said in August that "it remains our firm belief that no compulsory redundancies are necessary and that an alternative approach is still possible".

Conservative shadow Welsh secretary Lord Davies of Gower said at the time that the deal was only possible "because the previous Conservative government intervened in Port Talbot, with one of the biggest support packages in the history of steelmaking to save as many jobs as we could".

Image source, Reuters

Earlier this month steel unions Community, Unite and the GMB balloted their members on the redundancy packages put forward by Tata.

Community and the GMB have said the agreement was the “best that can be achieved through negotiation” with the company.

Tata has said that the terms are its best ever offer to staff.

Workers will receive 2.8 weeks’ salary for every year of service, up to a maximum of 25 years.

They will receive a guaranteed minimum payment of £15,000 and an attendance-related payment of £5,000.

Voting ended on 16 September, but the results have not yet been announced.

Image source, Reuters

The steel industry in Port Talbot is the UK's biggest single carbon emitter.

Port Talbot is - of course - in the county of Neath Port Talbot, an area which has something approaching a quarter of Wales' emissions.

The amount of greenhouse gases broken down per person living in Neath Port Talbot is the highest in the UK outside London.

It is estimated that moving away from coal-powered blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces using scrap metal as fuel could cut UK carbon emissions by about 1.5%.

That would also reduce Wales' greenhouse gas emissions by some 22%.

Paul Pigott
BBC News in Port Talbot

Alan Aco, who runs a barbershop overlooking the steelworks, says the closure is going to hit the town "big time".

Aco, 42, who opened his shop seven years ago, says his customers are on edge about what will happen next.

He says many residents of the town are “depressed, sad” and that some are “losing sleep over it”.

“They’ve got bills to pay and it’s not that easy to just got find another job,” he adds.

Steffan Messenger
BBC Wales environment correspondent in Port Talbot

Image source, Andrew John / PA Wire

Headlines - and often controversy - follow the artist Banksy around, and it was no exception when he dropped into Port Talbot.

His work Season's Greetings, with its inevitable political message, appeared out of the blue on garage walls in December 2018, and that was the start of quite a saga.

But even though it eventually left Port Talbot, the anonymous artist's illustration of a boy with wide open arms appearing to welcome snow - which is in fact ash from a skip fire - had a lasting effect.

As one local artist said: "When Banksy turned up in town, that really kicked off a scene here that had been bubbling under."

Former steelworker Gary Owen claims to have been the person who sparked the artist’s interest after messaging him on social media.

“I bought a trampoline for my daughter, and when she played on it her feet were covered in black dust. And I was really unhappy about it, and I thought ‘how can you highlight this’?”

“I wrote to him in August and it appeared in December then.”

Standing by the walls where the Banksy appeared, he points to the PVC cladding on nearby houses: “Everywhere is orange”.

“You’d always wake up with a sore throat from the dust. Hopefully that’ll calm down a bit now. We’ll be able to breathe a bit better.”

Tata says it’s invested heavily in reducing the works’ impact and that moving from two blast furnaces to an electric arc furnace, which uses recycled steel, could lead to a “90% reduction in dust from the works’ chimneys”.

But it’ll come at a cost, with about 2,000 jobs lost.

Image source, James Petty

We’ve been sent this picture of employees from the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking plant ahead of its closure - the workers gathered for a photo after their shift made its last virgin steel at the weekend.

Paul Pigott
BBC News in Port Talbot

Adam Beechey, 33, from Taibach, Port Talbot, has finished his last shift after five years at the Tata site, but hopes to find other work there.

But he says he still does not know what is next, admitting his is a “job at risk”.

"It’s not nice. When I took this job it was a job for life in my head."

Adam – who worked in the heavy end where hot liquid steel is cast into steel blocks – said generations of his family, going back to his great-grandfather, worked in steelmaking there.

“I think I speak for everyone around here in saying it’s worrying times and not just for the people working at Tata – it’s the small businesses,” he said.

He adds that the closure will impact the entire town, with those out of work no longer able to spend money in the shops.

He says: "I just hope for the people who want to stay in the steel-making industry, I hope there’s a future for all of us."

What will happen today?published at 13:04 British Summer Time

13:04 BST

Huw Thomas
Business correspondent, BBC Wales

I understand that the last usable iron from Blast Furnace 4 will be extracted before the end of the afternoon. Workers on shift are expected to watch as the final "tapping" of the iron occurs.

The metal flows at a temperature of 1,500C, and will be taken to the next step in the steel production process.

The moment will be recorded by Tata Steel cameras.

Steel production has been at its lowest in the UK since the 1930s depression, when almost two-thirds of output came from Wales.

But international competition in steel has been strong for many years.

By 2019, the UK produced 7 million tonnes, behind seven European nations, while China made 996 million tonnes.

The industry employed 320,000 people in the UK in the early 1970s - including 20,000 in Port Talbot.

But by 2021 the significance of steel to the economy was hugely reduced, accounting for less than 0.1% of total output by 2021.

However, Port Talbot is still dominated by one industry - as anyone who has driven past it along the M4 will see - and steel remains vital to Wales as a whole.

One economist called Tata "the most economically important private sector company in Wales".

All this turmoil in Port Talbot stems from a shift from traditional steelmaking, using a blast furnace, to an electric arc one.

But what is it and how does it work?

Huw Thomas
Business correspondent, BBC Wales

So what is happening at Port Talbot and why is the furnace closing?

Blast furnace production is how you convert iron ore rock into liquid iron, which is then turned into steel.

It’s how they’ve done it since the iron age and for decades they’ve done it on a massive scale here in Port Talbot.

But it’s massively polluting. The emissions from this site are some of the biggest in Wales, if not the UK.

Closing the blast furnace cuts those emissions. Tata Steel says that instead it's bringing a cleaner way of making steel to south Wales as they build an electric arc furnace, which melts scrap steel.

But that’s some years away and meanwhile there’ll be thousands of job losses before this greener way of steelmaking can arrive.

Image source, PA Media

Welcome to our live coverage of a momentous day for Port Talbot, Welsh industry - and Wales as a whole.

The last blast furnace at the giant Tata works will stop producing steel today, marking the end of the traditional method of steelmaking in south Wales.

Tata Steel is closing the heavy end of steel production and restructuring its UK operations, making 2,800 workers redundant.

It will instead invest £1.25bn in a greener electric furnace in Port Talbot, which will begin construction next year.

Stay with us as we bring you all the latest news and reaction.