Liberty House aims to build a major steel mill in Australia

The GFG Alliance and Liberty House have launched a plan to build a new 10 million tonnes per year steel plant next to an existing South Australian steel plant in Whyalla state. People would most likely call the plan "... crazy," said group owner Sanjeev Gupta, but "the project will start with a much more modest increase in capacity of 600,000 tons per year."

The GFG Alliance has entered into a contract with the China Metallurgical Corporation (MCC) to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of the Liberty Next-Gen Steel plant with a capacity of 10 million tons /year. Productivity is roughly double that of Australia's 5.3 million tonnes /year.

The A $ 600 million (US $ 434 million) signed contracts included contracts with equipment suppliers to upgrade the plant more quickly. This will mark the first step in increasing capacity at the steel plant from 1.2 million tonnes per year to 1.8 million tonnes per year. MCC subsidiary CISDI Engineering will install pulverized coal injection technology into the blast furnace. Danieli was awarded a contract for the supply of a new rail and heavy section. Gupta says he sees a great future in rail production in Australia for both domestic demand and exports.

Investments include A $ 45 million hotel, A $ 6 million local processing business and A $ 145 million in horticulture development. The local council says it expects the local population to grow from 22,000 currently to 80,000 by 2040 if a new plant is built.