By Emma Young
The West Australian government has announced Kwinana will be the location for Australia’s largest ironmaking electric smelting furnace, which in turning Pilbara iron ore into steel will finally make the state into “more than a quarry”.
The announcement follows Australia’s largest steelmaker BlueScope, and its two largest iron ore producers, BHP and Rio Tinto, announcing earlier this year they would form the NeoSmelt consortium to develop the pioneering plant, with electric smelting the key to producing green iron and steel.
The NeoSmelt site in Kwinana.
Several locations were considered around Australia with Kwinana emerging as the frontrunner, the state’s Premier Roger Cook said at a press conference flanked by the WA Petroleum Minister David Michael, federal Resources Minister Madeleine King and representatives from each company, as well as Woodside Energy.
It was also announced on Friday that Woodside would join the consortium as an equal equity participant and energy supplier, subject to final arrangements, prompting a renewable energy-focused thinktank to warn that a genuine commitment to green steelmaking needed to rapidly move to coal and gas-free production.
Cook said NeoSmelt would take iron ore from the Pilbara and use renewable energy to produce molten iron, which would then be used to remove coal from the smelting process.
He said steel being manufactured in Western Australia would change the entire business model.
“No longer will we just be a quarry … we will become a producer of green iron as part of the global supply chain for green steel,” he said.
The state will invest $75 million towards the project, including the infrastructure at Kwinana.
Feasibility works are expected to complete next March with a final investment decision in 2026 targeting commissioning in 2028.
“Securing NeoSmelt for Kwinana puts WA at the cutting edge of the global green energy/green steel push,” Cook said.
“I can’t over-emphasise the importance of this announcement. Downstream processing has been the Holy Grail for the mining industry in Western Australia for decades.
“What we’ll be doing here is developing the technology needed to understand the processing plant arrangements, then we are in a position to deploy those at commercial scale, which means Western Australia will be a green iron and a green steel producer in the future. This means thousands of new jobs. This means extra prosperity.”
The pilot plant would produce 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes of molten iron a year. It will initially use natural gas to reduce iron ore to DRI, but once operational, the project aims to use lower-carbon emissions hydrogen to reduce iron ore.
The NeoSmelt parties said in a statement that Kwinana was chosen for its access to transport logistics and existing infrastructure, coupled with the state government’s willingness to contribute financially.
BlueScope chief executive Australia Tania Archibald said this was a significant milestone in a transformative project.
“The progress made during the pre-feasibility stage is a testament to the collaboration of all parties involved,” she said.
“BlueScope’s role as project manager leverages our deep iron and steelmaking experience at the Port Kembla Steelworks and our unique capability as the operator of the world’s only electric smelting furnace processing DRI in New Zealand.”
BHP Western Australia iron ore president Tim Day said a successful pilot plant of this scale would be a huge achievement in the bid to fast-track near-zero emission pathways for steelmakers using the Pilbara ores that powered Australia’s economy.
Beyond Zero Emissions chief executive Heidi Lee said Kwinana was one of the top existing green industrial sites in Australia and the perfect location for new technology to be piloted, but a genuine commitment to green steel-making needed to rapidly move to coal and gas-free production.
“To secure a long-term future for green steel in Kwinana we now need to see equivalent support for new renewables to power green industries, including ironmaking and associated supply chains,” she said.
“BZE research shows that a coordinated approach to new industries and renewable energy can save around half the costs of hydrogen pipelines, and almost 75 per cent savings of new transmission lines.”
WA is the world’s largest single exporter of iron ore into the global market.
The steel industry generates about 8 per cent of global carbon emissions.
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