Pot

The pot in this photograph is one piece of an industrial complex that has been producing steel continuously since 29 August 1928. Its surface tells the story plainly: discoloured metal, heat pitting, the kind of wear that accumulates across years of sustained high-temperature work. Nothing about it is decorative. It is a working vessel from a working plant. The Port Kembla Steelworks began as the project of Charles Hoskins, whose company purchased land from the Wentworth Estate and commenced construction in 1926 around a single 800-tonne-per-day blast furnace designed by Freyn Engineering of Chicago. Charles Hoskins died in February 1926, before the furnace was lit. His widow Emily lit No. 1 blast furnace on 29 August 1928, and the furnace was named Emily in her honour. The ceremony was described at the time as being "of the most practical character." No fanfare. Just fire. Australian Iron and Steel Ltd formed in 1928 with English and Welsh partners, and the steelworks expanded through the following decades: a second blast furnace blown in 1938, a third in 1952, a fourth in 1959. BHP acquired the operation in 1935 and drove further expansion through the post-war years. A hot strip mill opened in 1955, the first in Australia. At its peak in 1973, steelmaking at the site exceeded 4,000,000 tonnes per year and the workforce exceeded 20,000. BlueScope Steel Ltd took over operations in 2002. The plant remains active. No. 5 blast furnace is operating and scheduled for retirement by 2030. No. 6 blast furnace is currently under a $1.15 billion reline, with a projected operational life of a further 20 years on completion. This photograph was made in 2016, when blast furnaces had been burning at Port Kembla for 88 years without interruption. The pot in the frame is part of that continuity: marked by the work, still present, still inside an operating steelworks.