The Australian government has announced $200 million in grant funding that aims to help Australian steel manufacturers be globally competitive and secure the future of the local steelmaking industry.
The grant marks the launch of the first round of Powering the Regions Fund (PRF), delivering support to BlueScope Steel Limited and Liberty Steel Australia.
BlueScope received $136.8 million in funding to reline and upgrade its No. 6 Blast Furnace at the Port Kembla Steelworks. The project aims to maintain domestic production, reduce emissions, and support pathways to produce even lower-emissions steel in the future.
Approximately 250 additional workers are expected to be hired during the upgrade and relining of the blast furnace.
The BlueScope project is also expected to help secure the local workforce over the long term, including the thousands of jobs at the Port Kembla Steelworks.
Meanwhile, Liberty Steel Australia was awarded $63.2 million in funding, which it will use to replace its existing traditional blast furnace at the Whyalla Steelworks with a low-carbon electric arc furnace (EAF).
The new EAF will support the manufacturing of green steel and help Liberty reach its carbon neutrality goals by 2030.
Liberty’s transition to green iron and steel is expected to scale the company’s workforce by around 24 per cent over five years and help provide retaining and opportunities to learn new skills for a substantial number of existing employees.
“This $200 million investment in the steel sector is about securing the long-term future of the steel industry in Australia. As we undergo the transformation to Net Zero it is vital that we support our industries to adopt and manufacture cleaner technologies,” said Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.
“Steel is essential for our energy transformation. Ninety per cent of the materials that go into making a wind turbine are steel and cement, and we’re going to need a lot more of it.”
“Regions like the Illawarra and Whyalla have been industrial powerhouses for generations, making the steel used in building our houses, infrastructure and industry, while creating jobs, and we want to see this continue,” Bowen added.
The grants mark the rollout of the PRF under the Critical Inputs to Clean Energy Industries program.
The initiative aims to support hard-to-abate sectors like steel to allow Australia to keep making things that are vital to the energy transition, including electricity and rail infrastructures like wind towers, solar farms and energy transmission, and the construction of energy-efficient buildings.
The Albanese government also recently announced $200 million in grant funding to support hard-to-abate cement and lime and alumina and aluminium sectors.
Successful projects are slated to be announced in the coming months.
