Bhp's Future Cast
Illawarra Mercury
Thursday May 27, 1999
BHP Co Ltd has cast the first liquid steel from its new billet caster at its Whyalla steelworks operation in South Australia, a major step in the restructure of its long products steel business.
BHP said yesterday the first liquid steel was produced from the operation late on Tuesday.
And hot commissioning of the caster, which involved a variety of equipment and performance tests, had started ahead of schedule.
``This significant milestone in the overall restructure of our long products business establishes Whyalla steelworks as the primary source of steel billet for the rod, bar and wire mills at Newcastle, supplying an annual 750,000 tonnes of steel door to door by national rail," BHP Steel long products president Lance Hockridge said.
Mr Hockridge added that the balance of requirements, up to 500,000 tonnes per year, would be supplied from BHP's electric arc furnace steel mill in Sydney.
``When the Newcastle steelworks closes at the end of September, there will be a seamless transfer of supply which will sustain the world class product and technical back-up services that our customers expect from us," he said.
Importantly, BHP would also have significantly less dependence on unpredictable export markets due to the Whyalla production.
The steel news came as BHP shares suffered another major selldown on the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, closing 34 weaker at $15.90 off an intraday low of $15.75.
BHP announced in April 1997 it would close steel manufacturing in Newcastle, its Sydney wire and Geelong rod mills and restructure its steel business to survive the increasingly competitive steel industry.
Whyalla had been running its rolling mill at 15 per cent reduced capacity since late January due to continuing weak demand for the product in Asia but said in March it was in the process of ramping back up toward annualised production of 1.2million tonnes.
© 1999 Illawarra Mercury
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