Whyalla wipe-out in SA storms

The Port Pirie lead smelter faces up to $7m of costs, while Whyalla’s steelworks is up for three weeks of repairs.

Arrium’s administrator said power was needed by 5pm to avoid a “critical stage”.

South Australia’s biggest industrial operations are facing serious damage from the statewide power outage, with slag solidifying at the blast furnaces of the world’s biggest lead smelter in Port Pirie, idling it for two weeks, and critical problems looming at the struggling Whyalla steelworks.

Port Pirie smelter operator Nyrstar said that despite a back-up generator kicking in, the prolonged outage had caused slag to solidify in the blast furnace, which would be down for 10 to 14 days for repairs and cost the company €3 million to €5m ($4.39m to $7.31m) in profit.

At the Whyalla steelworks, where production has stopped, the pellet plant and slurry pipelines are cooling rapidly, with the plant facing three weeks of repairs. But earlier concerns about the blast furnace cooling — which would have required a six-week overhaul — look to have been averted through generator power.

“We are obviously very disappointed that the power supply in South Australia has failed and the impact that this has caused to the Port Pirie plant,” Nyrstar’s Zurich-based chief executive Bill Scotting said on Thursday.

The severe weather conditions and resultant power outage have wreaked havoc on the state’s big industrial and mining projects, forcing BHP Billiton to suspend production at the big Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine, and Oz Minerals to do the same at its flagship Prominent Hill mine.

The administrator of steelmaker Arrium, which owns the Whyalla steelworks, said the operations were facing critical issues across the plant.

“At the moment we’re trying to avert the blast furnace going into an uncontrolled cooldown, because that will take five to six weeks to get back up again, but we should be able to get enough self-generated power to get to safety mode to keep it going,” administrator Mark Mentha said.

But he said this would not prevent ladles containing 180 tonnes of steel each solidifying, an uncontrolled cooling at the pellet plant kiln, which would result in a three-week shutdown, or solidifying of iron ore in a slurry pipeline to the pellet plant.

“We don’t think the outlook for power is great, so we’re trying to find alternative power through generators and the like,” Mr Mentha said.

Arrium has also suspended iron ore mining.

BHP also said Olympic Dam had shut down until grid power could be restored.

“Back-up generators are currently providing power to critical infrastructure and will allow a restart of operations when power is restored,” a spokeswoman said.

OZ Minerals said it was unclear when it could resume mining at Prominent Hill.