North Star BlueScope Celebrates Expansion Project During Board Visit

The project, which will add 850,000 metric tons (roughly 937,000 short tons) of annual hot rolled sheet capacity once complete, was originally announced in August 2019. It was delayed slightly when, in April 2020, BlueScope said it would reschedule construction and installation for six months in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The new EAF – the minimill’s third – was officially commissioned during the second half of 2021 (during the first half of Australian parent company’s BlueScope Steel Ltd.’s 2022 fiscal year which ends June 30). This week’s celebration was on the occasion of a visit by BlueScope‘s board of directors, the first visit to the mill since the Covid outbreak.

Final construction and commissioning of a second caster is still progressing, a BlueScope official told SMU.

Production of the first coil is expected next month, with an 18-month ramp up to the full run rate after that.

When announcing the expansion project in 2019, BlueScope managing director and CEO Mark Vassella said that the project has future potential growth, through possible debottlenecking, to add a further 500,000 metric tons per year of steelmaking capacity.

By Laura Miller, Laura@SteelMarketUpdate.com