Indian steelmaker Tata Steel, which met with unions on Thursday to discuss its Port Talbot plant in Wales, “confirmed the closure” of its two blast furnaces and the loss of “around 3,000 jobs”, a source close to the matter told AFP. .

The group, which plans to replace its blast furnaces with a less polluting electric equivalent, is due to make a formal announcement on Friday, while a “45-day consultation period” continues before the job cuts, the same source said.

In September, the British government announced it would invest up to £500m (over €580m) in the massive Port Talbot plant to reduce pollution, but there have already been talks of up to 3,000 redundancies.

The Port Talbot plant is “the biggest carbon emitter in the UK at the moment”, said the executive, who saw the closure of the coal furnaces as a way to cut the country’s global carbon emissions by around 1.5%.

The GMB, Unite and Community unions, which met with company bosses in London on Thursday, said they wanted to put forward “alternatives” to the job cuts but did not get what they wanted.

“The large-scale job losses will be a major blow to Port Talbot and the UK manufacturing industry as a whole,” GMB said in a statement to AFP.

Unions have “offered a realistic and valued alternative” to avoid forced redundancies, but “this plan appears to be knocking on a closed door”, the union lamented.

The British government said in September that Tata Steel, Britain’s biggest steelmaker, has 8,000 employees in the country and that the subsidies are aimed at keeping about 5,000 of them.

Tata Steel did not confirm the closures and job losses on Thursday. According to a statement sent to AFP, the group said it wants to “always share its official announcements with its employees first.”