BlueScope will benefit from a state government decision to build a 270-kilometre pipeline out of steel.
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On Monday the government announced the successful tenderer – a joint venture from John Holland and MPC Group – for the $467 million River Murray to Broken Hill water pipeline.
“The NSW government had a choice to be able to build this pipeline out of imported synthetic product but we said that we wanted to build this out of steel,” said Regional Water Minister Niall Blair.
“The 270-kilometre pipeline will be constructed substantially from steel rolled in Australia, strengthening the NSW government’s position as the single largest domestic purchaser of Australian steel.”
Mr Blair said the tender specifications included a requirement that Australian steel was used in the project.
Mr Blair could not state what percentage of steel would come from BlueScope.
“We wanted to make sure that we had the largest component of this pipeline made out of Australian rolled steel,” he said. “A lot of that comes out of Port Kembla.”
The government has opposed a push from Labor and the Greens to mandate Australian steel in all taxpayer-funded projects.
Mr Blair said the decision to mandate the use of Australian steel in this project wasn’t an about-face.
“The NSW government is not about just putting a bill through or a motion through parliament to say we’re going to use certain percentages, because we’re well above that,” he said.
“We actually are consuming more steel than some of the percentages that were put in during that debate last year.”
Parliamentary Secretary for the Illawarra Gareth Ward said the decision was “a vote of confidence” in the steel made at BlueScope.
He said he’d lobbied Mr Blair to use local steel.
“What I wanted to do was make every possible effort to ensure this particular project uses local steel and Australian steel because we know we produce the best products here in the Illawarra,” Mr Ward said.