Eyre Peninsula

On Tuesday we moved to Whyalla. We are staying in the local caravan park with power. We went to the steelworks in town. I thought the tour was very interesting. The driver of the bus we were in was very chatty but talked about Whyalla and their humongous steelworks. Here’s some information about the steel works. Approximately 1.2 million tonnes of raw steel is produced in the steelworks each year, with about 65% of that product then transferred by rail to the steelworks Market Mills in billet form for further processing. The balance of the steel is then converted to finished products in the Whyalla Rolling Mill. These products service the construction and rail transport industries.

Depending on production and maintenance schedules you will get to see different parts of the process operating around the 1000 hectare site. Your tour will take you past the blast furnace, coke ovens, reed beds, steelmaking and casting plant and the rolling mills, where structural steel, rail line and steel railway sleeper sections are made.

The LIBERTY Primary Steel Whyalla Steelworks has a production capacity of ~1.2Mtpa of steel using a Blast Furnace Steelmaking process. Approximately 65 per cent of the steel produced is transferred by rail in billet form to InfraBuild Steel’s Rod Bar and Wire business for further value-added processing, and the remaining steel is converted to finished products in the form of structural steel and rails through the Whyalla Structural Mill. 

LIBERTY Primary Steel Whyalla Steelworks has significant experience and expertise in the production of steel rail and steel sleeper systems in service to the Australian railway industry

The Steelworks is configured as an integrated steelmaking route that produces slabs, billets, hot rolled structural steel and rail products. Total production capacity at Whyalla Steelworks is 1.2 Mtpa of cast steel and 475 ktpa of hot rolled product.

GFG Alliance’s operations in Whyalla underpin key regional infrastructure development and form the economic backbone of the region, representing over 43% of the local economy and approximately 42% of local employment.