Hundreds of workers in Whyalla will lose their jobs as a result of a decision to permanently shut down the blast furnace at the South Australian regional city’s steelworks.
It is expected the decision will mean 500 workers will be out of a job, as well as more than 100 contractors working at the site.
Workers at the Whyalla steelworks were informed about the decision this morning.
The blast furnace has been offline since April and, despite the best efforts of workers, they have not been able to restart it.
The coal-fired oven was used to melt iron-ore into liquid pig iron, which was then turned to steel.
It comes as administrators KordaMentha and the state and federal governments look to finalise the sale of the business which went into administration 19 months ago.
What will this mean for customers of steel who have been relying on the steel works for product?
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas is expected to reveal further details about the decision this afternoon, including potential job offers from other employers, including BHP.
At the time the administration was announced in February 2025, Mr Malinauskas said the purpose of appointing KordaMentha was to “stabilise the business and seek to stop” job losses from occurring.
“For workers employed by OneSteel Manufacturing, that is workers at the steelworks itself, they will now have their futures assured,” the premier said at the time.
“They’re in a situation now where they’re not going to wake up tomorrow and the administrator is making people redundant.”
Mr Malinauskas qualified those comments by adding that there would be “a process that the administrator goes through and the new owners potentially will make their own decisions”.
But he further added that “people working at the steelworks today will be working there tomorrow and into the foreseeable future”.
Sale still ‘on track’
Since the cautious optimism of early 2025, the forecasts around the future of Whyalla had started to shift, with both the premier and the administrators speaking openly about potential redundancies.
“If it comes to pass that there is a requirement for redundancies or whatever that looks like, you can rest assured that we’ll comply with our enterprise agreements, we’ll work with the unions, we’ll work with the state to manage that as best we can,” KordaMentha partner Sebastian Hams said in May.
Talk of sizeable job losses had been brewing in recent days ahead of the premier’s arrival in the regional city on Monday morning.
The Whyalla Steelworks, which was forced into administration by the South Australian government in February 2025 after amassing huge debts under previous owner GFG Alliance, is now in the final stages of a sale process, with two bidders remaining in contention: Indian company Jindal Steel and Australian-owned enterprise M Resources, while BlueScope Steel retains a right of last offer.
State and federal governments have committed more than $2 billion in taxpayer support to keep the plant running and attract a buyer, and Premier Peter Malinauskas says he still expects the sale to be finalised by the end of 2026, even as earlier hopes of a decision by September have slipped.
Complicating the picture, the steelworks’ ageing blast furnace — offline since April — is reportedly being taken permanently out of service, a move expected to cost at least 146 jobs, though officials say it should not derail the broader sale process. In short, a buyer for Whyalla Steelworks looks likely, but the identity and timing of that deal remain unresolved.
On Sunday, Mr Malinauskas said a sale was still likely in the next three-and-a-half months.
“We intend to finalise the sale and the transaction by the end of this year. We’re on track to do that,” he said.
“What that will set up is a massive injection of capital into Whyalla to set it up for a new long-term future.”
