Visit to Steelworks

Today our Probus club had arranged a visit to Port Kembla blast furnaces where most of Australia's steel is made from iron ore and coking coal. The sight of the blast furnace was stunning-like a volcano with the slag from the reaction at 1450 Deg C running down the side of the reactor vessel like lava from a volcano. We weren't allowed to take pics inside so this is a file shot on the web but there will be pics available taken of us there. The heat from the just- poured slabs was overpowering. Nice job in winter there!

Each batch of molten steel is 320 tonnes and makes 13 coils of 3mm thick sheet steel.

The site itself is a massive 760 hectares and dominated by massive dark stark structures-some 30 storeys high. It looks very grim - a few pot plants would cheer it up here and there.