Blast furnace out of action at Whyalla
The coal-fired blast furnace at Whyalla Steelworks will shut for weeks as sales discussions continue, the Premier confirmed today.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said today that administrators of the Whyalla Steelworks Korda Mentha told the government its ageing coal-fired blast furnace and its mill would be shut for “a number of weeks”.
The steel mill has been offline since early April in the plant that was built in the 1960s, but Malinauskas assured the issue with the blast furnace was not as “complex” as those forcing previous shutdowns.
“I understand that the challenges associated with the blast furnace are not nearly as complex as what we have seen previously with things going on with the blast furnace, but it does illustrate a key point, and that is, the blast furnace is a very, very old piece of equipment that we should expect things to go wrong with given its age,” Malinauskas said.
“You know… it’s somewhat remarkable that the staff at the steel works have been able to sustain this blast furnace as well, as long as they have given some of the operating circumstances they’ve had to endure.”
Administrators Korda Mentha took over running of the steelworks 14 months ago after it was forced into administration by the state government and a $2.4 billion bailout was announced with the federal government.
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Both governments have since said they would contribute to upgrading the old blast furnace with an electric arc furnace if a new owner was found, the state government continually saying that a buyer would be found by August, 2026.
BlueScope Steel – Australia’s largest steelmaker and a steelmaking adviser to Korda Mentha – has the last right of refusal in the sale process and is part of a bidding consortium including Japan’s Nippon Steel, South Korea’s Posco and India’s JSW Group.
Malinauskas said the operation of the blast furnace that was closed for unscheduled maintenance was key to the sale of the steelworks and that the consortiums interested in buying the steelworks had “gone from 70 to 12 and we’ve now narrowed it down to the final five”.
He said there would be challenges ahead in relation to the blast furnace transitioning to an electric arc furnace and there would be “some pain” before “gain”.
If the sale does not happen, the state government has comprehensively ruled out purchasing it, Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis telling InDaily in February saying “You can’t ask 1.6 million taxpayers to underwrite 30 million taxpayers – it’s not fair”.
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