Tata Steel's move to shift to electric arc furnaces and close the blast ones in the UK is aligned with the country's net zero goals, chief executive officer TV Narendran has told Moneycontrol.
The comments come after the firm was accused of "hypocrisy" following its January 19 announcement to shut down the two blast furnaces at Port Talbot Steelworks in Wales in phases. The decision is expected to affect up to 2,800 jobs.
The company is accused of hypocrisy as it is opening a new blast furnace plant in India while it decided to close two blast furnaces in the UK citing a cut in carbon emissions.
"I think let’s understand the context in different geographies. At a broad level, Europe has a carbon tax. Europe has committed to net-zero by 2050, both Europe, the continent and UK. The policies have been brought in.
“There is a carbon border adjustment mechanism. So, there is a roadmap and there is a target that the governments have set on how much of carbon they want to reduce by 2030," Narendran said.
British newspaper The Guardian reported that the steel giant has been accused of “gross hypocrisy” as it was preparing to open a new blast furnace in India, while citing a cut in carbon emissions to close furnaces in Wales, costing thousands of jobs.
The UK business was not sustainable amid subdued demand environment, Narendran said. The company was looking to leverage UK's abundance in scrap steel to produce steel.
"India has set net-zero by 2070. We don't have a carbon tax in India. So, the regulatory framework in India is different. India is a growing market, so, you need to build more capacity," Narendran said, stressing the need to scale up capacity to gain market share in India.
The comments come as a phased commissioning of the 5 MTPA expansion at Kalinganagar has commenced, which Tata Steel cites as the "largest blast furnace in India at 5,870 cubic metres".
"It' a very different context in India and UK and we have never said anywhere that we’ll stop building blast furnaces," Narendran added.
The company swung back into the black in the December quarter. It reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 522.14 crore against a net loss of Rs 2,501.95 crore in the same quarter of the previous year, helped by robust domestic demand offsetting weakness in Europe, the company said on January 24.
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