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BlueScope Port Kembla

The BlueScope Port Kembla steelworks project is one of Bis’ long-standing materials handling contracts, spanning nearly 70 years.

Download Project Fact Sheet
  • Location

    The BlueScope Port Kembla operation is located 80km south of Sydney. Land of the Dharawal people.

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  • Status

    Current

    Start date: 1954

  • Customer

    BlueScope - Port Kembla

  • Commodity

    Steel / Lead

The contract: Materials Handling

The BlueScope Port Kembla steelworks project is one of Bis’ long-standing materials handling contracts, spanning nearly 70 years.

Our key responsibilities include:

  • The supply and hire of a core fleet of mobile equipment, including electrical, LPG and diesel-powered forklift units on a fully maintained basis, supply of casual hire forklifts and the other site services for the forklift fleet.
  • Operation of a 2000m2 workshop and a team of field maintenance mechanics who operate fully equipped service vehicles, providing a range of services from re-fuelling to a quick response 24/7 breakdown service.

Customer Operations

BlueScope's Port Kembla steelworks is the largest crude steel production plant in Australia.

Port Kembla has a production capacity of just over 3 million tonnes of steel per annum over a 760 hectares area.

Bis’ assets at Port Kembla

  • People

    People

    A dedicated site team with an impressive 130 years of combined site experience at Port Kembla. This includes a reliability coordinator to provide performance metrics, maintenance strategy updates, insight into continuous improvement initiatives and support for site trials and training. Plus a long-term employees providing quality expertise and experience to the project.

  • Equipment

    Equipment

    Currently our equipment onsite includes a range of forklift configurations have been optimised specifically for BlueScope, including: Battery-powered high-capacity electric forklifts up to 16T capacity (due for service in 2024), Flameproof 4T forklift for operating in hazardous zones, 18T forklift with kissing tynes for handling both bore horizontal and bore vertical steel coils in BlueScope’s warehouse operations, 32T forklifts with dedicated coil probe attachment, 56T forklift with tong and magnet attachments for handling steel slabs, Sweepers and electric pallet trucks

Key project achievements

Safety

The Port Kembla team has maintained an excellent Zero-Harm safety record of nil Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) for over 10 years.

Long-Standing Contract

Bis has a collaborative partnership with BlueScope focused on strict safety protocols, a well-established Continual Improvement programme, a strong innovation platform and value adding initiatives.

This positive long-term working relationship with BlueScope is reflected in consistently awarded contracts.

We attribute this to the team’s:

  • focus on safety
  • proactive and planned equipment upgrades, replacements, and operability improvements
  • commitment to continuously adding value and reducing operating costs

Commitment to Climate Strategy

Bis supports BlueScope Steel with its public climate strategy and decarbonisation pathway, with the goal to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030, towards future reduction of 100% by 2050.

Part of this includes the roll out of a new electric fleet of specialised assets from 2024. The fleet of battery powered high-capacity units will represent up to 63% of the new forklifts, with the aim to keep the fleet evolving.

Their configurations have been optimised specifically for BlueScope. Options include small footprint units, flameproof specifications, custom mast heights, extra wide carriages and thin tynes with chisel tips, dual drive tyres and a variety of specialised attachments.