Establishment The company was
spun off from
BHP in 2000 as an almost entirely domestically focused steel manufacturer and distributor branded as OneSteel. Among its principal assets were the
Whyalla Steelworks, Whyalla harbour and iron ore mining operations along the
Middleback Range, about west of
Whyalla. The company subsequently expanded its businesses in mining, mining consumables, steel, and recycling.
Company acquisitions and sales In 2006, an agreement was announced under which OneSteel would buy out
scrap metal company
Smorgon Steel for US$1.2 billion. However, concerns by competition regulator, the
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), delayed the process, as did concerns by construction industry trade unions about possible job losses. The merger was completed in 2007. In 2008, the company announced that one of the bar mills in the
Hunter Valley and the mill in
Melbourne would be closed. In 2011, OneSteel acquired the iron ore assets of
WPG Resources for an estimated A$320 million. In the same year, OneSteel sold its Piping Systems business and associated property investments to US-based McJunkin Red Man Holding for a total of $100 million. In 2012, OneSteel was renamed Arrium. The company had three primary reporting segments: • Arrium Mining, which then exported about six million tonnes of
hematite ore per year to China from its
Middleback Range mines. • Arrium Mining Consumables, which included Moly-Cop grinding media, the largest supplier of grinding media (grinding balls and grinding rods) in the world, servicing the global
mining industry, particularly the copper, gold and iron ore sectors. The business sold about 950,000 tonnes of grinding media per year in South America, North America and Australasia. • OneSteel Steel and Recycling was a manufacturing, distribution and recycling businesses. The division manufactured
long steel products, structural pipe and tube, and wire products in Australia; it distributed structural steel and reinforcing products in Australia through about 200 sites and supplied scrap metal to foundries,
smelters and
steel mills in Australia and internationally.
Financial difficulties and acquisition The company employed nearly 10,000 workers. The company, as Arrium Limited, accumulated huge debts and in 2015 it announced a full-year loss of
AUD1.9 billion In April 2016, Arrium's directors placed the company into
voluntary administration. Soon after that, to reduce Arrium's total debt of $2.8 billion, administrators signed a sale agreement for AUD1.6 billion to sell the Moly-Cop grinding media business – the company's only profitable division, which was not under administration. In September 2017, British-owned
GFG Alliance acquired the Arrium Mining and Arrium Steel businesses, including Australia's main steel manufacturer and distributor, OneSteel. The OneSteel brand was changed to Liberty OneSteel and Arrium Mining was renamed
SIMEC Mining. The acquisition also included the Australian reinforcing company, Austube Mills; the Australian rail stockist Emrails; and product brands such as Waratah and Cyclone. which included a A$700m solar, battery, and
pumped hydro project to power the steelworks, via Zen Energy, another GFG Alliance subsidiary. ==Whyalla iron ore export==