Wollongong was one of two cities in NSW which deemed themselves "Steel City", the other being Newcastle which is north of Sydney. Newcastle ceased to be a "Steel City" when BHP closed down its steel production there in 1999. Production of flat steel continued in Wollongong though, but BHP again took a walk. It sold off its steel division entirely, breaking it into two divisions. The first, which produced finished products, pipes, etc was floated off into a company called OneSteel. That company changed its name to Arrium in July 2012, and you have to wonder which genius corporate image consultant probably got a 6 figure bonus for that one. Customers can doubtless associate steel production with a company named Arrium much more readily than with a boring old name like OneSteel. I mean, a name like Arrium stands for something! (I believe it's the Latin collective noun for "Gullible Pointy Haired Bosses Who Slash Staff And Pay Lots Of Image Consultants", but don't quote me.)

The second was the flat steel division which made its living in the Illawarra. This went into a company which was originally called BHP Steel but was rapidly renamed as Bluescope Steel. The name "Bluescope" is largely meaningless as well and probably also resulted in a large consultancy payout, but at least in this case there was some justification in that the company had to distinguish itself from its erstwhile parent. And the final name does admittedly tell you what the company does. (Though every time I hear the name I think of the line "Blue Horseshoe Loves Anacot Steel" from the movie Wall Street.)

Of course it's no longer easy for western companies to compete in steel manufacturing. Even in the US, which has a vastly bigger market than Australia, the industry has downsized, sorry, "rightsized" as any long term resident of Pittsburgh can doubtless attest. The need to pay first world wages makes competing with those who don't more than a little difficult.

Bluescope is no exception. Nor is it any exception to the rule that no matter how dire the financial results, the CEO must be adequately "compensated" for his skill and stewardship with obscene... sorry, I'll read that again, market competitive packages. I think that this article sums it up quite neatly:
It’s important we take a moment out of our day today to congratulate Paul O’Malley, the head of BlueScope Steel. In the past year, he received a pay rise of 45 per cent even though the company he leads made a loss of $84 million. For his sterling effort, he raked in $5.1 million. What a guy, huh?

It's worth noting that shareholders have not received a dividend since 2011.

However some industry still does tick over in the 'Gong, perhaps not as profitably as it once did, and here we see it at work early in the morning.