Perth Steel Dynasty Bets Big on Brisbane Pipeline

For decades, Queensland’s construction industry has quietly absorbed a problem that nobody seemed willing to solve. Reinforcing steel, the sinew of every apartment tower, bridge, stadium and road project in the state, has had to be either shipped from interstate or imported from overseas, leaving the industry perpetually exposed to supply chain shocks. But that’s about to change. Alter Steel, a new venture backed by Perth-based Westview Group, is preparing to break ground on an $800-million-plus electric arc furnace steel mill at Pinkenba in the Port of Brisbane. It will be the first new steel mill built in Australia in almost 40 years, and one that would reduce current carbon emissions output by up to 80 per cent, creating a greener alternative for reinforcing steel. Westview moves upstream The Westview Group and its trading arm, Best Bar, are far from newcomers to the steel game. Founded by brothers Grant and Brad Johnston more than 30 years ago, the business has grown into one of Australia’s largest consumers of reinforcing steel, processing and distributing product to major construction companies and home builders. Alter Steel chief executive Paul Zuckerman says Westview Group managing director Grant Johnston had been watching the supply problem in Queensland compound. “And he thought ‘if nobody wants to build a steel mill in Queensland, we’re one of the largest consumers in the country, we’ll do it ourselves’,” Zuckerman says. ▲ Alter Steel chief executive Paul Zuckerman says the steel mill at Pinkenba will be the first new steel mill in Australia in almost 40 years. That decision to backward-integrate — to climb one rung up the supply chain and manufacture the product rather than just distribute it — was what led to the establishment of Alter Steel. “We’re solving a problem and taking advantage of an opportunity that’s been [in Queensland] for a long time,” he says. Queensland’s reinforced steel is predominantly sourced from interstate or internationally, Zuckerman says. It currently generates around 900,000 tonnes of scrap metal annually, most of which leaves the state. The site, the scale, the supply chain The chosen location is no accident. The 23ha greenfield site inside the Port of Brisbane is at the centre of a tight cluster of reinforcing steel processors and distributors. Zuckerman says if you draw a 10km circle around Pinkenba, you’ve captured almost the entire downstream industry in South-East Queensland. More importantly, it is also close to Sims Metals, which is expanding its own scrap-processing facility in the same precinct. Alter Steel has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sims to supply the scrap steel feedstock the mill will need, which is estimated at about 550,000 tonnes per year. Under the Alter Steel model, the scrap steel enters a more circular economy. “The scrap gets generated in Queensland, processed by Sims in Queensland, melted down and recycled in the mill at Alter Steel, then goes kilometres down the road to the cut-and-bend guys and into Queensland construction projects,” Zuckerman says. The port location also slashes freight. Alter Steel estimates it will remove millions of truck kilometres from Queensland roads annually, eliminating the double handling of scrap leaving the state and finished steel returning to the state. Greener steel production Emissions are becoming more central to project decisions, and embodied carbon is emerging as a crucial metric. Conventional steelmaking—blast furnace, iron ore, coking coal—produces roughly 1.3 tonnes of carbon for every tonne of steel, Zuckerman says. ▲ A rendering of the steel mill proposed for Pinkenba. It would cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent and reduce interstate haulage. Alter Steel’s electric arc furnace (EAF), built using technology from Italian firm Danieli, targets 300 to 350 kilograms of carbon per tonne. That’s a reduction of more than 70 per cent. “You’ve got 1.3 tonnes, which is current best practice, down to 0.3,” Zuckerman says. “There’s 70-plus per cent right off the bat. And then taking trucks off the road is an addition on top of that.” The mill is also designed to plug directly into renewable energy sources, enabling further carbon reductions as Queensland’s grid continues to decarbonise. Zuckerman is bullish on the timing. “As the Queensland Government invests in renewable energy, they need customers to build solar farms and wind farms. We’ll take it all.” The two existing electric arc furnaces in Australia—both owned by InfraBuild, formerly OneSteel, in Melbourne and Sydney—are approaching 40 years old. Alter Steel’s mill would bring not just new capacity but also a generational leap in technology. Investor appetite and the path to approval Alter Steel is currently in the final stretch of its pre-construction approvals. Final designs need to be lodged and confirmed, a process Zuckerman expects to wrap up within months. On the funding side, appetite has been strong, he says. “On the debt side... there’s probably more than enough people who want to be part of the consortium, domestic and international banks,” he says. Equity conversations are similarly advanced. The key de-risking factor investors keep returning to is the offtake—and here, having Best Bar and the broader Westview Group as anchor customers removes much of the commercial risk that would typically accompany a project of this scale. Groundbreaking is targeted for later this year, with the mill operational by late 2028. And the demand in Queensland supports the investment thesis. ▲ Queensland's demand for reinforcing steel is predicted to surge in line with housing, infrastructure and the Olympics build programs. The state currently consumes about 40,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel per month. Projections, driven by the Olympics infrastructure pipeline and broader South-East Queensland development, point toward 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes per month within a decade, Zuckerman says. That’s a 50 per cent-plus increase that the state currently has no domestic capacity to supply, and a big opportunity for Alter Steel. A pilot for what comes next Zuckerman is careful not to get ahead of himself; there’s still a mill to build, but he’s clear that Alter Steel’s Brisbane operation is designed with replication in mind. A smaller-scale mill on the west coast is already on the horizon, contingent on the Perth market maturing over the next five to ten years. “You can build these mills in different sizes,” he says. “The potential is there to do something on the West Coast, somewhere in that timeframe.” But for now, the focus is squarely on Queensland.

Perth Steel Dynasty Bets Big on Brisbane Pipeline

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