Event: Jennifer Westacott, Mark Vassella and Jason Economidis interview with Kieran Gilbert, Afternoon Agenda, Sky News
Speakers: Kieran Gilbert host, Afternoon Agenda, Sky News; Jennifer Westacott chief executive, Business Council of Australia; Mark Vassella managing director and chief executive officer, BlueScope and Jason Economidis chief operating officer, South32
Topics: Strong Australia Illawarra; infrastructure; manufacturing; regions; transport; decarbonisation; employment; supply chain; exports; frontier economy; growth
E&OE
Kieran Gilbert host, Afternoon Agenda, Sky News: Welcome to the Strong Australia in Illawarra coming to you from Wollongong this afternoon. With me is Jennifer Westacott, the head of the BCA, Mark Vassella, CEO of BlueScope and Jason Economidis, Chief Operating Officer at South32. Great to see you all, we’ve had a really interesting discussion this afternoon. Mark, first you with BlueScope, you’re nearing 100 years of steelmaking in Port Kembla. A wonderful legacy. But also, you’ve got some very interesting plans for the future as well?
Mark Vassella managing director and chief executive officer, BlueScope: Yeah, thanks, Kieran. I mean a significant milestone for BlueScope, almost 100 years of steelmaking. We have our challenges as a steel industry, we’re dealing with decarbonisation. We also have a blast furnace reline project, a very large investment that’s under a feasibility study right now, which will be the bridge for us to the newer green steel technologies or low emission steel technologies that will emerge over the coming decades. And our ability to align and invest in those new technologies, as and when they become viable, is what I see as the investment future for the Illawarra region. So, a fantastic, a fantastic milestone but lots more to come in terms of investment in the region.
Kieran Gilbert: Well, you said you’ll be here for another 100 years. So that says to me that the government landed the safeguard mechanism for heavy emitters appropriately in your view?
Mark Vassella: Yes, there was great recognition from the federal government that some industries are just hard to abate, and the steel industry is one of those there’s others, but certainly the steel industry is technology challenged at this stage around emission. So, recognition in the safeguard mechanism of the hard to abate industries, and the decline rates that we can meet at this stage has been fundamental to us continuing to reinvest in the region.
Kieran: Jennifer Westacott, the steel industry obviously plays a big part in a whole range of industries, including renewable energy?
Jennifer Westacott chief executive, Business Council of Australia: Absolutely, well, there aren’t many wind turbines that don’t have steel in them. There aren’t many houses that don’t have steel in them. But the other thing that Mark’s doing is, what we really want the whole economy to do which is value add, the COLORBOND product, which is an incredible innovation. So, it’s playing a role in every aspect of the economy, but it’s going to be crucial to the decarbonisation agenda, if you think about all of that componentry for, for solar for wind turbines for everything that’s going to power up a clean economy.
Kieran: COLORBOND, that came out of this facility here in Port Kembla?
Jennifer: Absolutely. And then the things that you can do with the built form, so FormFlow, which kind of comes out of BlueScope. They’re building unbelievably energy efficient buildings using that FormFlow product, and you know, fire resistant, incredibly thermally efficient, low-cost energy, that’s the sort of stuff that BlueScope is able to sort of generate. And once we get renewables really going, the steel from BlueScope becomes less carbon intensive in terms of the production of the steel. And suddenly, our export markets are opening up again, because people look at the quality, the production cost, the low emissions production cost, suddenly we’re back in the game export.
Kieran: And there’s also the point, Jason, from your perspective that there’s not just the one type of coal, you’ve got the thermal coal, there are alternatives to thermal coal in energy. But in steelmaking, metallurgical coal, as you’re providing to BlueScope, and others, there is no alternative when it comes to steelmaking?
Jason Economidis chief operating officer South32: No, there’s no substitute for the metallurgical coal. And we believe that for the next 10 to 20 plus years, there won’t be so as a result, you know, our commitment is to providing high quality metallurgical coal to our customers, because that’s our best contribution to make sure that we’ve got low emissions products.
Kieran: There is a transition on though, how is South32 dealing with the energy…
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