newy.com.au – Greensteel Australia will invest $500 million in an all-electric steel mill at Mayfield North, returning large-scale steelmaking to part of Newcastle’s former BHP steelworks site and creating more than 200 direct full-time jobs.
The company has secured a 70,000-square-metre site at 51 Industrial Drive for the project, which is planned to begin operating in January 2028 and produce up to 600,000 tonnes of steel a year. It has been described as the first new steel mill in Australia in about three decades.
The Mayfield North plant is being pitched as Stage One of Greensteel Australia’s broader national strategy, with another strategic location still to be announced. The company’s immediate Newcastle plan is smaller than its previously promoted $2.3 billion flagship proposal, but it gives the Hunter a defined role in the emerging green steel sector.
Greensteel says the Newcastle mill will use electric induction furnace technology and will not use gas in the steelmaking process. The company has also promoted the project as having zero direct carbon dioxide emissions, tying the investment to wider efforts to cut emissions from heavy industry.
In a same-day company statement, Greensteel said: “Today we set the wheels in motion” for the project at the “historic BHP steelworks site at Mayfield North, Newcastle”.
Refurbishment and modernisation work at the site is due to begin before the end of 2026, with major equipment expected to arrive from October 2027. That timetable would put early site works ahead of a 2027 construction and commissioning phase before the targeted start of operations the following January.
The location is significant for Newcastle, with the Mayfield precinct forming part of the former BHP Newcastle Steelworks land and sitting within a port-side industrial area with road and shipping access. Planning and site documents show the broader precinct has undergone remediation and has long been viewed as land for future industrial use.
The announcement comes after Greensteel’s public plans shifted across several potential sites and technology configurations. Earlier company material referred to Parkes and Whyalla as possible locations for a larger project, while previous announcements with equipment supplier Danieli outlined a 600,000-tonne-a-year rolling mill in NSW and later orders linked to a broader low-carbon steelmaking program.
The Hunter has been repeatedly identified in policy and industry planning as a potential centre for renewable-powered heavy industry, hydrogen-linked manufacturing and lower-emissions steel. Greensteel’s Mayfield investment now gives that discussion a concrete project, while leaving key details of later stages and any second location still to come.
Member for Newcastle Tim Crakanthorp said:
“Newcastle has always been, and always will be, a proud manufacturing city. It is fantastic to see an industry that has played such an important role in our history and identity returning home.”
