In a wide-ranging, exclusive conversation with Mayor Clare McLaughlin, GFG Alliance Executive Chairman Sanjeev Gupta has reiterated his passion for Whyalla; his green steel and hydrogen plans; and thanked the community and employees for their hard work and persistence.
Council approached Sanjeev to be involved in the first of its ‘A Conversation With…’ podcasts and he jumped at the chance to share his thoughts with the local community.
Click the image to listen to the podcast and read some of the key quotes below. Council will continue to roll out episodes, featuring topics of interest to the community.
Sanjeev on:
Refinancing
“I’m so happy that Whyalla happens to be the first business where we’ve achieved major refinancing, so it’s an extra special feeling given that I have such a special place for Whyalla in my heart. It’s a credit to all the teams who worked really hard and consistently.
“It gives now a very stable platform for the operations. Of course the operations themselves are doing incredibly well, but also now the fact that they have stable financing means we can really look to the future.”
Whyalla employees
“They’ve been very committed, they’ve stuck with us and worked very hard throughout and…it’s a credit to them and their perseverance also that this operation is now successful and has a bright future. So I would like to say congratulations to them and of course a big thank you for being my supporter – being a GFG supporter – and being part of our success.”
His message to Whyalla
“Both the community and my employees, I’m very, very proud of them. I think they deserve to be congratulated for the hard work they’ve done, it’s a town which has never given up, it never will, and I think that…persistence is what I appreciate the most because it…marries with my own values very much. And I think Whyalla will be a great place in the future and it will be thanks to their efforts.”
Local improvements / investments
“There’s hundreds of initiatives…There wasn’t a silver bullet that would solve everything, apart from of course building a new green steel plant, which is absolutely my ambition. But in terms of fixing the current operations, given that they were subscale, given that they hadn’t been invested in for a long, long time and all the different challenges they had, it was really a question of working at it in detail. So we put together special teams, and they’ve really done a thorough job at identifying every single thing which could be available.”
Green steel & hydrogen
This is his “absolute passion”, aiming to make it a reality via hydrogen production in Whyalla, which he described as “one of the best places in the world” to make hydrogen via electrolysis.
“It’s virtually impossible to ship hydrogen in my opinion …you will have to use hydrogen where you produce it. So for example, you’d have to use it to make steel. So there’ll be much more of a compelling case for the development of industry in situ, hence why Whyalla is so special, because we have almost unlimited reserves of magnetite iron ore, which is what you need for making DRI. In terms of renewables, there is no better place than Whyalla and South Australia for wind and solar,…so I’m very excited about the prospects for hydrogen and green steel for Whyalla.”
Visiting Whyalla again
“I’m simply desperate to get there…the moment there’s an opening, I’ll be there in no time!”
Port Adelaide Football Club
“Our values are very similar, they really do care about Whyalla as well, so it really is a great partnership from a Whyalla perspective. I’m sure they’ll be back, there’s no question about it in my mind, as long as I’m a sponsor, Whyalla will remain centre of my…focus for Port.”
For all media enquiries, please contact Whyalla City Council Manager Communications and Public Relations, Sean Kelly, on 0411 054 643 or sean.kelly@whyalla.sa.gov.au.