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The John Lysaght plant was established at Westernport near Melbourne, Victoria following a feasibility study carried out in 1 968 jointly by The Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd; Guest, Keen and Nettlefords Ltd and John Lysaght (Australia) Ltd. Westernport Bay was chosen because of its proximity to Melbourne - both a potential source of manpower and a marketplace - and because of the excellent natural deep water port. This port enabled both the import of raw material from the rolling mills at BHP's steelworks at Port Kembla and the export of finished products. A further benefit was the availability of natural gas from the EssoBHP field in the nearby Bass Straight.
The project was built in two stages. The first, which was began in April 1970, comprised the Cold Strip Mill and this was completed in March 1973, with the paint line being commissioned in December 1973, with the paint line being commissioned in December 1973. The second stage, which was started in April 1974 and commissioned in March 1978 was the hot strip mill. Today, the hot strip mill has a capacity of 4milliont/year and the Cold strip mill 1.5million y/year. Approximately 1500 people are employed at the plant and of these roughly 10% are female employees.
Hot Strip Mill
Steel in the form of slabs is delivered to Westernport by sea from Port Kembla in roll-on-roll-off ships and is taken to the slabyard, 2km from the dock by Kress Carriers. These vehicles can travel at speeds up to 48km/hr while carrying loads up to 120t and offer greater flexibility than rail or crane transport. Slab sizes up to 30t are used, ranging in thickness from 150300mm, in width from 650-1900mm and in length from 4.7-12.2m. Slabs are loaded, one at a time, by crane on to the reheating furnace entry table from where they are pushed into the walking beam furnace and re-heated typically to 1150-1250°C. On leaving the furnace, the slabs pass through a high pressure...