The facility is an integrated mill with 625,000t of steel making capacity per year. It includes metal coating, painting, hollow sections, plate and structural beam capabilities.
The operation also owns a cache of ironsand, and utilises a unique direct reduction process for the ironsand.
According to the presentation, one of the main issues facing the operation is New Zealand’s proposed emission trading scheme, which will affect the steel sector starting December 2010. New Zealand Steel is seeking to be excluded from the scheme or granted 100% free credits under the scheme.
The company claims to have already spent $200m to reduce energy demand at the steel works, with 60% of the operational electricity generated onsite by co-generation from captured process gases.
During 2008, the facility faced another issue, in which accretion growth on the kiln lining damaged refractories, blocked discharge systems and disturbed process gas flows. This was resolved by increasing control over silica levels in the ironsand feed. This resulted in a drastic cut in hot metal production loss due to kiln accretions.
Products produced by New Zealand Steel include the non-combustible Axxis steel for building and framing, and COLORSTEEL CP Antibacterial.
Bluescope is considering a number of projects, including a vanadium converter to increase the quality and quantity of vanadium slag recovered from the existing hot metal supply. An iron make project will install direct reduced iron technology to allow the latent capacity of existing melters to be utilised.