Tuesday, May 22, 2018

BlueScope made the decision today to temporarily bypass the Waste Gas Cleaning Plant (WGCP), which serves the Sinter Plant at our Port Kembla Steelworks, to ensure the safe operation of the plant. This is a proactive response to elevated temperature readings detected in the WGCP by our plant measuring equipment.

Following the fire at the Sinter Plant stack back in late 2014 BlueScope installed additional monitoring equipment and controls, including enhanced processes, procedures and specific bypass licence conditions in order to maintain the safe and efficient operation of the WGCP.

We expect the WGCP to be in ‘bypass mode’ for a short period which will afford us the time to investigate and rectify the issue.

Whilst there may be some visible emissions from the Sinter Plant during this period we can assure the community that the plant will continue to operate within its existing stringent environmental licence limits as regulated by the EPA. We will be conducting extensive air emissions monitoring during the bypass with the results reported on this site - click here.

The EPA and BlueScope’s Community Consultative Committee (CCC) have been advised of the interim arrangement.

Update - the WGCP was taken back on-line and now operating normally after approximately a week of 'bypass mode'.