On any given day there are 250 people inside the Port Kembla steelworks working on the biggest project in the Australian steel industry — relining BlueScope Steel's number six blast furnace.
The massive undertaking is a three-year project with a total cost of $1.15 billion, the biggest spend in the company's history.
As the current number five blast furnace reaches the end of its life cycle, the steelmaker is working to bring its only other furnace back online.
But it comes at an awkward time as, globally, steelmakers pursue low-emissions steelmaking alternatives.
Green steelmaking, BlueScope claims, is simply not a viable option for maintaining the steelworks' output of 3 million tonnes of steel per year.
However, the steelmaker said its unprecedented investment demonstrated the company's commitment to the future of Australian steel manufacturing.
"This reline does secure the future of the Port Kembla Steelworks for the next 20 years," Blast Furnace Reline Project director Justin Reed said.
A century of blast furnace steelmaking
The industrial heart of the NSW Illawarra region has a rich history of blast furnace steelmaking, stretching back to the lighting of the first furnace in 1928.
This fundamental process has underpinned steelmaking in the region for almost 100 years.
A blast furnace combines iron ore and metallurgical coal at high temperatures to produce molten iron — the raw feedstock for steel.
Over time, the brick lining inside the furnace and the water-cooling system degrades and needs to be replaced.
"There are a lot of parts that make this project as complex as it is," Mr Reed said.
The steelmaker's approach to this project has been a little different to previous relines.
The company has contracted the largest crane operating in the southern hemisphere to help.
"This crane is amazing. It is definitely changing the way we go about this project," Mr Reed said.
"It has a huge reach, so the driver's cabin is about 86 metres above the ground. The boom itself is 95 metres of reach.
"It enables us to move a lot of parts around the plant with that one single crane."
There are only two blast furnaces operating in Australia, at Port Kembla and the Whyalla Steelworks in South Australia.
While BlueScope has been able to draw upon expertise within its ranks, it has also relied on support from other steelmaking nations.
"There are some technical experts that we do need some help from overseas, some of the particular items in a blast furnace are designed in Europe," Mr Reed said.
Turning heat into energy While the basics of the steelmaking process remains largely unchanged at Port Kembla, there have still been significant technological leaps.
The blast furnace will be fitted out with the latest in energy-saving technology.
The federal government's decision to provide $136 million towards the reline received some backlash, due to the plant's carbon footprint.
However, the refurbished furnace will include a top gas recovery system, turning exhausted gas into energy.
For the first time, the furnace will also include a waste gas heat recovery system, reusing heat to generated in the steelmaking process.
The energy captured is enough to power about 20,000 homes.
"We will offset a lot of the fuel that we would otherwise need to be added into our processes," BlueScope Steel waste gas recovery engineer Rosa Tran said.
Bridge to green steel BlueScope is one of Australia's largest carbon emitters.
The company has faced criticism that reviving the blast furnace will commit the steelmaker to another two decades of burning coal.
But BlueScope Steel sees the project as a bridge to low-emissions steelmaking.
The company's chief executive, Mark Vassella, has previously said the reline would enable production to continue at Port Kembla while the company investigated pathways towards green steel.
In December, the company announced it would be pushing ahead with building a pilot green iron plant south of Perth.
The plant will use smelting technology rather than a blast furnace.
But BlueScope Steel is confident there remains a pathway for low emissions steelmaking at Port Kembla, claiming the blast furnace can be retrofitted to run off green fuel sources such as hydrogen.
"The two projects absolutely will work in parallel," Mr Reed said.
"This project needs to be completed to ensure the Port Kembla steelworks continues to operate through the time that our company and other companies investigate the future iron-making sources."
BlueScope Steel said the reline is on track to be completed by mid-2026.
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