Bluescope Steel Tour

Friday, January 18, 2013

My Mom, the kids, and I went on the Bluescope Steel Tour this morning.  We can see the steel factory from our apartment and watch the freighters come into port just about every day, so I thought it would be good to learn about the place. 

Can you imagine wearing this in the heat?

The tour was really interesting and really, really hot.  We saw a short movie on how steel is made and one on safety procedures.  Part of the safety procedure was that we had to wear long pants and closed toed shoes.  They provided us with the rest of the safety gear.  We had to put on a highly visible long sleeved coat, safety goggles, hard hats, a headset, and gloves. 

We boarded a tour bus.  The tour guide provided information as we went along.  The industrial site is on 8 square kilometers.  There are multiple buildings with many different purposes that I can't begin to remember.  We saw one of the freighters at the dock, the smokestacks we see from our balcony, and the #5 blast furnace, piles of coal, piles of iron ore, piles of limestone, and lots of train tracks.  They also have their own water treatment plant.  The purified water goes into the canal, and then out to sea.  The tour guide said they have tropical fish living in the canal and a few workers have seen a shark and a small marlin in it.

One of the freighters we see

The three smokestacks

We got out of the tour bus at one building.  We went inside and got to see the steel in a big "pot" filled with molten iron ore.  As oxygen was added, there were blasts coming out of the top.  On the other side of the building, we saw large slabs of steel that looked like rectangles.  They were radiating a ton of heat.  They were being cut with a special computerized torch. The guide said they were probably 1500 degrees centigrade. 

View of the industrial complex

We hopped on the bus to cool off and drove to the next building.  In this one, they were thinning out the slabs of steel, and then rolling them into huge coils.  These coils are transported to another building for final rolling.

This is a view of the steel factory from City Beach.

 Overall, we enjoyed our tour, but probably should have picked a cooler day.  When Adam picked us up, his car read 45 degrees which is  113 degrees.  It is not the kind of day to wear long pants and protective gear.  We decided we have to really respect the people who work in that environment every day.