00:00After months of rising tensions over the fate of wireless steelworks, workers and union
00:07leaders met with government ministers today to detail their concerns.
00:12Obviously everyone's been quite stressed and felt like they're not heard, so today
00:16it's pretty good that the workers are able to be heard and for them to actually sit and
00:21listen to us.
00:22The Cabinet was also given an update on the steelworks by its owner, GFG Alliance Chairman
00:27Sanjeev Gupta, who in a statement reaffirmed his company's long-term commitment to transitioning
00:33to producing green steel, a more than $1 billion commitment at a time his global empire is
00:39facing increasing financial pressure and local contractors have at times struggled to get
00:45paid.
00:46We want GFG to succeed.
00:48We want GFG to realise the transformation of the steelworks as they have committed to,
00:54but it's really the time for action.
00:56The government is planning to build a hydrogen power plant at Wayala that will, in part,
01:00assist GFG in transitioning to making green steel.
01:04But the opposition says a state government tender to supply natural gas to the site to
01:08support its operations in the first two years undermines the project's green credentials.
01:14There will be 50, 100 B-double trucks trucking in gas every day to power this hydrogen gas
01:23power station.
01:24In a statement, Tom Coutts and Toner says the opposition's figures are invented and
01:29on most days there will be no trucks required whatsoever.
01:32And in Wayala, the Energy Minister remained bullish on the government's ambitions for
01:36the Upper Spencer Gulf.
01:38What you're seeing created here is a province for green iron and that green iron is very,
01:42very attractive to a lot of international companies.
01:46The future, though, depends on keeping an ageing coal-fired blast furnace going and
01:50right now it's offline and has been for around two months.
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