Wales Made Steel for 100 Years — Why Did Port Talbot Switch Off Its Furnaces?

For more than a century, the night sky over Port Talbot glowed orange. On 30 September 2024, the last blast furnace at the town's steelworks was switched off, and thousands of jobs went with it. Once, this was the largest steelworks in Europe, with 18,000 workers. So why did Wales stop making steel from iron ore? In this documentary we stand on Aberavon beach and look across the bay at the works, through three generations of one steel family: the Victorian docks named after a landowner, the great Abbey Works of 1951, the years when the steelworks was the biggest employer in Wales, the crises of the 1980s and 2016, and the day the furnaces went cold. Then we look at the electric arc furnace being built to replace them, the delays, the money, and what the town has lost and might still gain. SOURCES Senedd Research – One year on: how has the blast furnaces closing affected Port Talbot? (2025) Port Talbot Steelworks (history) ITV Wales – Work begins on £1.25bn electric arc furnace (2025) Business Today – Tata Steel seeks fresh UK government funding as Port Talbot project faces delays (2026) This video is an independent documentary for education and entertainment. Timelines were correct at the time of recording. It is not financial or investment advice. #porttalbot #wales #steel #tatasteel #documentary A small nation once powered the world. Welsh coal fuelled the ships of an empire, Swansea smelted copper for the globe, Welsh slate roofed half of Britain and the first million-pound deal was signed in Cardiff. So where did all that money go? Black Gold Wales tells the true stories of the Welsh economy: the miners and the mine owners, the drovers who carried England's money, the towns that boomed and the valleys that were left behind, and the taxes and decisions that shape life in Wales today. Researched from Museum Wales, the National Library of Wales, the Senedd and the Welsh Government. For everyone with Welsh roots, at home or anywhere in the world. Long, calm and detailed: made to be watched slowly. New documentaries regularly. Subscribe and dig deeper with us.