{"id":19173,"date":"2026-05-27T02:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/19173\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T02:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:27:12","slug":"m-resources-and-jindal-steel-announced-as-two-remaining-whyalla-steelworks-bidders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/19173\/","title":{"rendered":"M Resources and Jindal Steel announced as two remaining Whyalla steelworks bidders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Malinauskas has announced M Resources and Jindal Steel are the two bidders remaining for the financially stricken Whyalla steelworks, while BlueScope Steel retains its right of last offer.<\/p>\n

M Resources is an Australian-owned enterprise, while Jindal Steel is an Indian company.<\/p>\n

BlueScope Steel was among the final five bidders, and has been providing expert advice to administrators KordaMentha on the steelworks’ operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

KordaMentha administrator Sebastian Hams said he was confident the sale would be completed by the end of September.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Malinauskas said he was more concerned that the steelworks were commercially viable than Australian-owned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we start playing favourites, rather than playing who is the best new owner to invest the capital that is required to give this place a future, we could make a mistake we regret,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Malinauskas earlier said on 891 ABC Adelaide that BlueScope continued to “be engaged with the enterprise here in Whyalla”.<\/p>\n

“They have been very important contributors to the process up to this point, including in supporting Whyalla in terms of the troubles its got with the blast furnace, which remain ongoing,” he said.<\/p>\n

“BlueScope still retain its right of last offer under the agreement that we have with them.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether that meant there were essentially still three bidders remaining, Mr Malinauskas said “that’s up to BlueScope now”.<\/p>\n

“Time will tell how that plays out,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got our two preferred bidders, and that’s because they’ve got the two best bids on the table to achieve the end game that we’re all committed to.<\/p>\n

“We do still remain engaged with BlueScope should they wish to exercise their right of last offer, but of course that offer only gets executed if that offer is as good as, or better than the other two propositions on the table.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The M Resources plane was seen at the Whyalla airport last week, ahead of today’s announcement that the Australian company was one of two final bidders for the steelworks. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

No change to $1.9 billion funding package<\/p>\n

In an extraordinary series of moves in early 2025, the state government wrested control of the embattled steelworks from GFG Alliance by forcing the site into administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, attempts to secure a new buyer have been ongoing.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the government said the number of potentially interested parties had narrowed from 70 to five<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Hams, from KordaMentha, said there was a “plan B, C and plan D” if the steelworks could not find a new owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so many moving parts here: we have a mine, we have a port, we have a steelworks and inside the steelworks there\u2019s various different components,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of different plans for how you would continue to run this, with new buyers, without new buyers.”<\/p>\n

Shortlisted bidders have been invited to submit final funding proposals, with up to $1.9 billion on the table from the state and federal governments to transition the steelworks.<\/p>\n

Mr Malinauskas said the government’s funding package had not increased.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe $1.9 billion package is what\u2019s on the table and there is no suggestion from the Commonwealth, which provides the lion\u2019s share of that, to change that,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Job loss risk over blast furnace<\/p>\n

The steelworks’s iron-producing blast furnace has been offline since April.<\/p>\n

Mr Malinauskas conceded there was a risk of job losses if the furnace was unable to be restarted before the steelworks transitions to a direct-reduced iron plant (DRI) and electric arc furnace (EAF).<\/p>\n

Mr Hams said the administrators would comply with enterprise agreements and consult with the unions and state government if job losses occurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep the pellet plant going, we keep the rolling mills going,” he said when asked what would happen if the blast furnace was permanently shut.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, that scenario would see the blast furnace and steelmaking be put on hiatus for a period while you built an EAF and DRI.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blast furnace faced similar shutdowns in the years before the state government put the previous owner, GFG Alliance, into administration last February<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The blast furnace at the Whyalla steelworks site has been offline since April. (ABC News: Che Chorley)<\/p>\n

Liberal deputy leader Josh Teague said it was important there was no delay in the sale of the steelworks<\/p>\n

“Every day the steelworks is in administration is a day of high cost, and with delay comes more cost,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that “questions will be asked” when the state and federal money is used to modernise the steelworks.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been hearing now for some time that the blast furnace is wobbly and isn’t operating. We’ve heard the government talk about the benefits of transitioning to the new technology,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If that’s the case, there’s a lot of money that’s around the place, particularly from the feds, and I think it’s understandable that questions will be asked about when that money will be deployed towards the modernisation of the steelworks, including, very importantly, the furnace.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Malinauskas has announced M Resources and Jindal Steel are the two bidders remaining for the financially stricken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,318,11665,11660,11664,18670],"class_list":["post-19173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-peter-malinauskas","tag-steelworks","tag-tom-koutsantonis","tag-whyalla","tag-whyalla-steelworks-buyers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}