Steelmaking Resumes At Whyalla – For Now

GFG Alliance, the parent company of the Whyalla steelworks, has announced steelmaking resumed at the plant on January 5. GFG´s global chief manufacturing officer, Theuns Victor, said bringing the four-month shutdown of the blast furnace to an end had been a huge challenge. “However, I want to caution that we still have a long way to go before the plant is stable and secure. The blast furnace is currently running at half its capacity with a number of issues yet to be resolved. At the same time, we are also tackling challenges in the rest of the plant and will soon enter the EPIC Energy natural gas lateral shut down for 2-3 weeks which will add further complexity to the operations,” he said.  GFG Alliance chairman, Sanjeev Gupta, said steel plants of this vintage don´t do well being shut down.