PORT TALBOT: Tata found guilty after two steelworkers breathed in gas at 18 times the safe limit

Two steelworkers breathed in carbon monoxide at more than 18 times the safe limit as they stayed behind to get 13 contractors out of a gas alert at the Port Talbot steelworks, a court heard.

Now Tata Steel has been found guilty of failing to keep both its own staff and its contractors safe, and the company faces a fine.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court took two hours on Tuesday (13 October) to return two guilty verdicts. One covered Tata’s duty to its employees and the other its duty to contractors.

The prosecution said Tata never properly assessed the risks of an emergency procedure that vented toxic blast furnace gas through a “snort valve”. The company denied it.

Gas alarms went off with 15 men working near the blast furnace valve

The jury was told the trouble started on 14 February 2022, when a blower on blast furnace number four failed. A blower is the machine that forces hot air into the furnace.

When it failed, staff followed the emergency procedure, which included venting gas through the snort valve, the court heard.

Fifteen men were in the danger zone that day: two Tata employees and 13 contractors from York Linings, who were refurbishing one of the stoves that heat the air before it enters the furnace.

Eight of the contractors were working inside the stove, the jury heard.

The two Tata workers’ personal gas monitors went off and everyone was told to get out. The court heard the pair stayed behind to make sure every one of the contractors made it out.

Carbon monoxide monitors read 1,408 and 1,860 parts per million

Roughly a fifth of what comes off a blast furnace is carbon monoxide, the jury was told, and the short-term limit for breathing it is 100 parts per million.

One worker’s monitor peaked at 1,408 parts per million. The other’s hit 1,860.

Both were put on oxygen at the works and then checked over in hospital. Neither suffered lasting harm, the court heard.

The same blower had failed the day before, and the same emergency procedure was used then too. Nobody was working in the area that day, the jury heard.

The 2007 blower explosion that wrote the snort valve into the emergency plan

A snort valve was never meant for emergencies. Its job, the court heard, is to regulate the fresh air feeding the furnace system.

That changed after 2007, when a blower at Port Talbot broke down, the jury was told. With no air being forced in, the furnace pressure collapsed and poisonous gas travelled the wrong way along the pipework into the blower, which blew up.

Tata’s answer was a new emergency drill. If a blower failed again, gas would be let out through the snort valve to bring the pressure down far enough for the isolation valve to close and seal the furnace, the court heard.

Tata says the snort valve case was built on hindsight

For the prosecution, Rebecca Griffiths told the jury the whole episode came down to one missing piece of paperwork. Had the risks of the drill been properly weighed up, she said, the valve would not have been opened with men nearby.

Tata’s case was that its risk assessment was “suitable and sufficient”, and that the prosecution was judging a 2022 decision with the benefit of knowing how it turned out.

Tata sentencing set for 8 December, and only a fine is possible

Judge Geraint Walters thanked the jury and adjourned sentencing until 8 December.

The judge said a fine is the only sentence available for a company.

It is not the first time the company has been before Judge Walters over safety at the works. Last year Tata was fined £1.5m over the death of contractor Justin Day, after pleading guilty.

Steelmaking at Port Talbot has changed since the 2022 incident: the last blast furnace was shut down in September 2024. Its electric replacement is running late.

Author

Kit Peters

Kit Peters is a journalist and the editor of Swansea Bay News, covering Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire since 2020.