Click to play videoLondon: Port Talbot in Wales on the western coast of Britain is the biggest manufacturing centre of Corus.
The Tata's bid to buy Corus has shaken not just the company but the entire town. Three thousand workers now are closely watching the developments.
Corus employee Tony Taylor says, "Everybody who has been in steel knew that once Mittal had come in and created a $100 million steel company, the weather change in the steel industry, so we knew Corus was actively seeking a partner. So what's got to be has got to be, and we have to survive in these circumstances."
At Port Talbot steel is not just an industry, it's a way of life. Any new development is extremely crucial for them.
South Wales Evening Post News Editor Paul Turner says, “There is a history at Port Talbot with steel works, being linked up with people's lives, generations of families have worked there, the father works there, the son works there, the grandfather worked there, so it's in the blood so to speak."
But if Corus must be taken over, many workers, like the management, would rather it was Tata than anyone else.
"We know that some other company might come in who would only be interested in parts of the works or parts of the steel making process. We know at least that Tata want to come in they are going to give us access to the raw materials of the world, and yes, it could be good for the future. But there is always an air of uncertainty when there's a change, isn't it," Taylor says.
But there is a historical twist to this tale of takeover.
Councilor Hugh Evans says, “It's terrifically ironical because what we have now is a situation where this plant was at one time actually supplying rail girders to India to develop an Indian rail company. And now of course an Indian company wants to buy it and develop it."
The Tata move could put some of these town traditions and the plants production into the past. It needs to borrow processes import efficiency from a land that was once colonized with steel from here.
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